Establishing Order in My Environment

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On Day 6 of the #30DaystoMontessori Challenge, Deb Chitwood of Living Montessori Now and I challenged you to establish some order in your child’s environment as part of the #30daystoMontessori series.

Today, I’m giving you possibly the toughest and most confronting challenge yet: I’m asking you to establish order in your own environment.

Establish Order and Organization in Your Home - Part of the #30daystoMontessori Challenge, encouraging parents to bring Montessori into their hearts and homes

Day 8: Establish Order in YOUR Environment

I’ve discussed before how I struggle with clutter, and it really is an ongoing thing. Something that has really helped me tackle it is getting to the root of why I allow clutter to creep into my space. And, yes, I grew up in a cluttered house, but when I look at my “reasons” for why that specific pile of clutter is on my kitchen table right now, it’s often a practical reason that can have a practical solution:

  • no place to put things “to deal with later”
  • I need to use the item soon so rather than put it back, I leave it out
  • getting distracted and not finishing tasks as I start them… then starting new tasks and not finishing those…
  • lack of an (easily accessible, permanent) to-do list to add items to, so I leave things out to visually remind myself to do them, rather than writing down a future task and putting the paper/item away (out of sight)
  • waiting for the perfect storage system, that perfect storage system to go on sale, etc etc.

So, today, I’m challenging you: if you struggle with keeping an orderly environment, get to the root of the issue today. Don’t worry about fixing the issue entirely, but think about why your environment keeps becoming disordered. Figure out what you need to put in place this week so that you can start establishing and keeping order in your and your child’s environment.

Stop waiting for perfection — figure out something that will work for now, and then you can fine-tune and perfect that system later. Waiting and allowing the clutter to build eats away at more of your time and efficiency.

If you already have a good system in place and have just been neglecting it a bit, spend some time today restoring order, and maybe look where you can carve out 5-10 minutes each day to maintain that system.

I just went out to Wal-mart and Target and picked up a bunch of small tote boxes — they are on sale for back-to-school season. I then went around the house and gathered up all of the piles of stuff that were accumulating so that I can deal with them. This is my work area at the moment:

Dealing with the clutter #30daystoMontessori Challenge

I think the mini-tote boxes will be a good solution, and I like that I can re-use them for a different purpose if my system changes or as I empty out each box. I’ll let you know tomorrow on social media how far I got with this challenge — I’m likely going to spend a bit more than half an hour, as it’s a task that I can do while watching Netflix after Ella goes to bed.

I’m looking forward to hearing your solutions and how far you can get with implementing order. Don’t worry if you can’t abolish all of the clutter today, start off by breaking down your game plan to get started this week. What you do get accomplished is the focus, and we’ll have some more time later in the #30daystoMontessori challenge to focus more on order.

Day 8 of the #30DaystoMontessori Challenge: Establish Order in Your Environment

Share your progress on social media with the hashtag #30daystomontessori and feel free to tag me on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter!

Challenge #5: An Orderly Environment

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4 Comments

  1. I love this challenge. Today I decided to get to the “root” of the disorder which in my case is too much stuff! Today I got really aggressive with minimising the amount of toys that are out at a time. I cleared most of our living room and put any of the toys that we’re keeping in the spare bedroom/play area. I set up a nice neat art and craft shelf by their art easel. I’m very pleased with the results. This is also helping me to organise my whole home better. Thanks!

  2. I have five kids in three rooms I have removed an embarrassing eight trash bags of toys, clothes, trash, and what the heck is that stuff! I am so glad I found your site. We are loving the challenge and we’re only on day five!

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