Clean Up Your Home to Gain More Time in Your Day

You may wonder how but having a clean and organized home can give you more time in your day. We can waste a lot of time looking for misplaced items, and cleaning things we need to use that weren't cleaned when they were put away – or left out.

Let's find out some of the ways we can save time in the home…

Organize! : Time searching for things is wasted time.  Use lists,  use time tracking software and calendars, but only use them to keep yourself organized.  If it takes you three hours to set up your day on a software program that is 2 hours and 55 minutes wasted.

Schedule! : Make time to make phone calls and return e-mails. If you're home during the day make sure people know what times you are taking calls or can accept visitors. Well meaning friends and family have the tendency to think you are available all day when you are a stay at home, work at home, mom. Also, avoid checking your voice mail and e-mail frequently. Instead, review them at scheduled intervals during the day.

Make Plans! : And stick to them. The best-laid plans often fall victim to their makers. While spontaneity is important, there is a fine line between it and plain procrastination. Once you've come up with a good plan for tackling a task, stay with it. Only you can prevent yourself from wavering.

 Some Practical Ways to Save Time

• Begin with messes and clutter that you see every day. Organize your kitchen, garage, and family room. Once you see how nice it all looks, you will want to work on the hidden areas.
• Use drawer dividers for socks, underwear, lingerie, and tiny items, to keep them separated and organized. This works well for both silverware and office supplies too.
• Give everything in your house a place of its own. A place for everything and everything in it's place. This way your family will know exactly where to find it and where to put it away.
• Establish one defined place in your house for storing library books, and end a house-wide hunt when it is time to read or return them.
• Hang hooks for your keys and purse at the entry to your home, so each time you walk in, you can hang them up.
• Set aside a basket for each family member for incoming mail, bills, and receipts and letters. This way everyone will know where these important items are when needed.  Keep all important papers such as birth certificates, social security cards and medical insurance information in one folder in your file cabinet.
• Get rid of things that are not needed any long.  Expired coupons, old prescriptions, magazines you might get around to reading someday.  All these take away space you could be using for items you do need and use..

You will free your mind to remember more important things like appointments and birthdays when you are organized.

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