After reading this great article Houzz – More free time with helpful habits I had to share my thoughts.
Sometimes I think people just think if they declutter and organise their space it will magically stay that way. That I’m like a magic fairy who will make all their clutter problems go away… Forever.
No, it takes new habits to be learnt – whether it’s the art of putting things away in their homes at the end of the day, or removing (decluttering) things that do removing things that don’t get used.
The key is to make that new habit easier to achieve – e.g if your things don’t have homes they won’t be put away cause you don’t know where that is, so you need to take the time and assign your things homes.
Maybe for you the goal is to meal plan and not be stressing at 5:30pm what is for dinner. Maybe your new habit will be to meal plan on Sunday night with the diary open to see what you have got on this week. At the same time order your groceries online for delivery the next day. I bet that delivery fee will pay for itself (less stress, less impulse purchases, less time, less takeout)
It takes a little bit of planning and thought to identify what exactly is the outcome to be achieved and in what way you can achieve it but the new helpful habit will be worth it.
What new habit do you want?
I agree, creating habits is the way to go. I love the idea of being a minimalist and reducing clutter in our life. I have been on a mission to declutter my life materially and electronically.
From a material perspective, I’ve started a twice yearly spring (and fall) cleaning exercise where I get rid of things I haven’ used since the last spring cleaning.
From an electronic perspective, having notes scattered about just adds stress to life. I decided to use an app to help with electronic decluttering: http://www.weretiredearly.com/Blog/2015/10/01/password-manager-app-amemoryjog-review/
Best of luck, great article!