Autumn is officially here! Now is the time to do a bit of planning and get a good system in place before the hectic holidays hit. We talk to women every day who call our 800 number to place an order for books, tapes, etc., and with summer over, there seems to be a collective urge to regroup and reorganize. Let us give you some ideas to think about from our new "Bound to be Organized" workshop and video.
For more than 20 years we have known that, with our sidetracked natures, staying focused is our main problem. We also know that you can't tell a sidetracked person to, "Just do it!" and leave her to figure out HOW. Managing a home, coordinating family appointments, orchestrating holidays, working, volunteering, carpooling, and juggling all the other responsibilities that go with being a wife and mother, can cause a Sidetracked Home Executive's FOCUS to fizzle out! That's why we've always preached "break down". Not the nervous kind, the logical kind.
For instance, when we told you to clean out all your closets, cupboards and drawers, you wanted to know where to start. We broke it down for you by telling you to start at the front door and work clockwise. We realize now, that wasn't enough of a break down. In our new workshop, we'll still teach the four-box method (Throw Away, Give Away/Sell, Storage & Put Away) but we'll teach a different focus and break down. Here's a glimpse of how it works. Break down your house into five stations and assign one station to one week (there are usually five weeks in a month). Let's say that Station One/Week One includes your entry, living and dining room, Station Two/Week Two is your kitchen, Station Three/Week Three the main bathroom, your office, a 1/2 bath and the laundry room, Station Four/Week Four the master bedroom and guest room and Station Five/Week Five is the basement. Begin de-junking at the entrance of the station. You'll work clockwise each day, cleaning out a closet, cupboard or drawer (sometimes for as little as ten minutes) and when the week ends on Sunday, you'll move to the next station and do the same thing. Granted, it will take several rotations (months) to get the whole house de-junked, but you will see progress in every room, you won't kill yourself and life as you like it will go on as usual. Eventually every station will be streamlined!
We've always known that you can't CLEAN surfaces unless you HAVE them and the reason you don't have them is because your closets, cupboards and drawers are too stuffed. Once you De-junk, you'll be ready for our "Detail Cleaning Cards". We won't go into those here because it's too much detail and it would take too much time to explain. In the workshop everybody will bring a rainbow package of 3x5 cards and five blank dividers and they'll leave with the new system in place. You've probably already guessed it...back to the five stations and the five week break down!
The other half of "Bound to be Organized" is setting up a daily planner. The cardfile is the housekeeping command center. It's like the hard drive of the computer and the binder is like a laptop. Together, they make a perfect marriage. We suspect you probably already have some sort of binder. Most of the women we've talked to have, but they're not really working. We're asking everyone to, first FIND their binder, and then bring it to the class where we will gut it and make it sidetracked-user-friendly for females. We have worked with our binders for a year now and we keep them as close to our breast as we would keep a newborn baby. It was a habit we had to develop. One of us did leave her "baby" on top of the car but thanks to a woman's honesty and a phone number inside, the run-over baby got to come back home. When it comes to a binder, we can show you how to choose one, use one and never lose one!
Most of the women who are pre-registered for the workshop, heard about it on the Keeping in Touch tapes they subscribe to. When they've called to sign up, they've asked how the new system works with the old. If you already have the Organized From The Inside Out cardfile, you will be ahead of the game. You can still use all but about 20 of the cards (and you may still want to keep those for delegating). All you'll do is add five dividers and the rainbow Detail Cleaning Cards.
If you live in our area and you'd like to get a few more ideas and tidbits, we'll be on Good Day Oregon (channel 12), probably in the eight o'clock hour on October 6. We'll show our daily planners plus some other samples that are on the market. We'll point out the good features and the bad. You'll see that our planners are a reflection of all the things and people we love. Rather than the dull "Prioritized Daily Task Lists" in the left brain planners we've studied, our right brain list is called a "Parade of Daily Adventures". We all know it's a good idea to make a daily "to do" list and prioritize it, that's one of our Seven "Duhs", but we think everyday should be fun. We'll show our method of "Weekly Slipshod Cleaning" (it's the kind of cleaning a hotel maid with 50 rooms, earning $6 an hour would do in a day) and we'll demonstrate "Odd Sock Scrubbing" (we put a wet sock on one hand for scrubbing and a dry sock on the other for polishing). We'll also explain the benefits of "Odd Sock Scrubbing" with your feet!
Our all-day "Bound to be Organized" workshop will be held on Saturday, October 31 (costumes optional) from 10-3PM at the Shilo Inn (off 1-205 on Airport Way) in Portland, OR. The cost is $75. Luncheon and handouts will be provided. Pre-registration is required. Class size is limited. If you can't attend in person, you can purchase a video tape. The cost will be $55.95.
Obviously, we're very excited about this gentle, logical, spirited new program! We've been more than a year developing and polishing it. We've seen remarkable improvements in our own homes with LESS effort because of MORE focus. With Thanksgiving, we've learned how to activate our purpose and values, embrace a new weekly plan, break down and tackle everything from housecleaning to long-putoff personal projects and find joy in each day's parade of adventures. We invite and encourage you to learn the "Bound to be Organized" program and use it for life!