by J. Lo

Created on: September 09, 2009

With stress from the outside world wrecking havoc on our daily lives, it is important to organize our homes as a "sanctuary from stress." Being in an organized home, creates a place of relaxation and an escape from the day-to-day challenges that many of us face. However, it is very difficult to create an environment of peacefulness, when clutter and disorganization abounds in our personal space.

The stress that we feel from being disorganized, will cause us to feel overwhelmed. In addition, it will hamper our productiveness, and our desire to enjoy life. "De-cluttering" does have a benefit in our lives.

Because there are many areas that need to be maintained in our lives (i.e., home, work, school and the kids), it's important to have a list of set priorities, and a plan for managing them. Each plan that is created should be conducive to the efficient management of your own home (and not your neighbor's home). Each household has different priorities.

Activities that we participate in, should also be prioritized and evaluated on a regular basis. Often we should ask ourselves: "Can I make better use of my time?" If the answer is yes, then it's time to make some changes. Once priorities have been established, it is much easier to lead an organized life.

The goal for being organized should be to:

- see what's in a certain space

- give everything a designated place (once you've established what you own)

- throw away or store what you don't use (Create three (3) separate piles: Keep, Donate, or Throw Away)

- make things accessible and easy to reach

Being organized has many benefits. Less time is wasted, and stress is reduced when things can be handled in an orderly fashion. Other benefits that come from being organized are:

- less energy is expended on unnecessary tasks

- confidence is gained from knowing where things are located in your home

- valuable storage space is freed up, and

- our homes become more inviting

In our quest to becoming organized, we must set aside the necessary time to put our homes in order. In addition there are many useful tools that can help us with the task of "becoming organized." Items such as calenders, planners, combining activities, and creating "to-do lists" help us with the challenge of becoming organized, and assists us with keeping stress at bay.

Often, we must de-clutter our environment, and review what's going on in our lives. With this in mind, keeping things in their rightful place (once we've become organized), allows us to be more self-sufficient, and have more free-time to do the things that we enjoy. Also, it gives us the much needed peace of mind that most of us desires.

Learn more about this author, J. Lo.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.