With all of the frenzy of activity occurring now until the end of the year, it’s easy to let your home slide into what I call Home Orderliness Hiatus Over HOlidays (HO-HO-HO for short).
HO-HO-HO often means people get so busy they stop taking the time to do a little bit of clean-up each day. They fall into bed way past their normal bedtime, too tired to clear off the table, do the dishes and tell the kids to put their toys away. Schedules and routines get interrupted, so there is no time to do all of the little things that keep a house in order.
No wonder our homes end up in complete disarray by January. No wonder the stores take advantage of this by creating huge displays of storage containers and organizing products after the holidays. No wonder all of the magazines in the grocery store check-out lines feature articles cheerily instructing us on “how to organize your home in (x-amount) of easy steps!” They know that most of us tend to let HO-HO-HO wreak havoc in our houses in December.
You have worked too hard keeping your home organized the rest of the year to let it slide into chaos in one month! Fight the clutter and mess by telling yourself this: Take an extra 20 seconds.
Take an extra 20 seconds to put something back where you found it. Take an extra 20 seconds to put the towel back on the rack, the measuring cup back in the drawer, the milk back in the fridge. Take an extra 20 seconds to hang up your coat when you come home, to recycle the junk mail laying on the counter, to put your keys back in the bowl by the door. Take an extra 20 seconds to put your shoes back in the closet, to put the scissors and tape back in the drawer, to throw out the plastic packaging. Don’t save up cleaning and organizing for a Saturday morning. You know you won’t take the time. Instead, do it as you go. Teach the family to take an extra 20 seconds to put back what they got out.
Take an extra 20 seconds. It will go a long way toward protecting your family from the HO-HO-HO tornado this year.
Image courtesy of Frumbert at Flickr.
