Too Busy for Your Own Good (49 page)

Another big part of your new organizational initiative, and the second order of business during your family meeting, is getting your home in order by purging your unnecessary stuff. Dividing up chores will only help so much if your house is overstuffed to begin with. More important than your workspace, your home needs to be an oasis of order and space. A cleaning of this magnitude may seem like more trouble than it's worth, but by freeing your home from clutter, you will save time in the long run. You must be ruthless about “the Purge”: if you haven't touched, worn, read, played with, or used it in the past nine months—toss it! This is not mere reorganizing, but de-busifying. Organizing is rearranging current piles in a new way; de-busifying is getting rid of stuff so you'll never have to organize it.

Set a deadline for when each person will go through all of his or her personal
stuff
—clothes, books, toiletries, toys. Let them know that if they don't do this, you will do it for them—and they
don't
want that! Set a date that all of you will go through the garage, storage areas, and basement. Don't forget the kitchen and pantry—surely there are items that you've never gotten around to cooking with and never will. Donating nonperishable items to a local food bank not only is good for your space, it's good for your community.

Load up on large garbage bags and used boxes, and get ready to do some tossing! You should have three distinct destinations for everything you will no longer need:

Sell
items that have some value in a garage sale, online auction, or consignment store. Make sure the price you're asking justifies your time and effort; if not, you might feel better about donating certain items, even if they are fairly nice or new.

Give away
items that have no value to sell but are still usable to someone.

Trash
anything broken, damaged, junky, or threadbare.

Exceptions can be antiques, heirlooms, and high-value memorabilia—
not
all the piddly ones. Olympic medal (yes), all 83 soccer trophies (no).

Once you know what you have to get rid of, put items on online auction. With a little research, you can discover which items are ideal for selling online; it varies and is always surprising. (I've sold an antique stove, custom saddle, and goofy souvenirs.) Set a day for your garage sale, and anything not sold online within a week will be put up for the garage sale. Whatever items you can't sell then should just be tossed out or taken to charity with the giveaway items. All profits should go into a special fund to provide some relief for the family or to reward everyone for a good job. A friend of mine earned so much from her “purge” that she settled a debt that was looming over her. (She had a
lot
of stuff.)

When Lyle and Donna married late in life, they merged their households and downsized to a small condo in a beautiful location. Once there, they discovered they had two or three of many of their appliances, plus a bunch of stuff they forgot they even owned. The move accomplished a purge on its own, but they were in danger of reverting to their old pack rat ways. They both agreed to an in-out rule—whenever you bring in something new, you must take out the item it replaced. They found that if they didn't want to get rid of the old one, it was probably not a good idea to buy a new one. As a result, they kept clutter down to a minimum and spent their money on traveling to exotic places.

You will stay less busy if you keep your commitment to reevaluating everything you buy, right on down to the souvenirs and tchotchkes you pick up on vacation. (Those shell leis are fun, but do they go with anything besides your pareo on vacation?) I promise you when you institute the in-out rule, your home and life will stay uncluttered and peaceful.

Making your home a sanctuary is one of the greatest gifts you can give your family and yourself. You'll need courage and conviction to institute some new (and often tough) house rules, but you will be thrilled with the refuge your home provides for you and the whole family. Once you live in a home that is a safe haven from “busy,” you'll want to tell the world! Be careful when you're tempted to tell your too-busy friend that she should have a family meeting and release her inner bitch! Fight the urge to preach or teach. Don't eulogize your process or try to convert other busy people to your family's new way of being. Just let them wonder why you're so happy all of a sudden.

Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country
.

—Margaret Thatcher

Which came first: stress at work or stress at home? These two conditions are almost always interrelated. Chances are that if you're stressed in one place, the baggage spills into other areas of your life. When you're always busy and stressed at work and at home, you develop a “stress lifestyle.” Stress becomes more than something you just experience, it becomes the way you lead your life. You must break this cycle—not only to preserve your sanity and maintain your physical health but also to increase your enjoyment of life.

Just like at work, when you get home, there are probably stressors staring you right in the face. You get so accustomed to certain routines day in and day out that you don't even notice how worn down they tend to leave you. Take a look around your home and you'll see some obvious changes you can make that will cut your stress by a percentage. And in the stress-reduction business, every little bit helps—heck, it might be enough to keep you out of the “busy danger zone.”

Your sounds
. Some sounds can cause stress (noisy neighbors, noisy kids), and some sounds can be soothing (down-tempo jazz, silence). If you're greeted
with the wrong sounds when you get home, it's time to take a stand and reclaim your auditory space.

Your exercise
. Certainly raising kids and running a home is physical work, but just because you're tired doesn't mean you've gotten your workout in for the day during your commute. To support your body in fighting stress, you need to get your heart rate up (aerobic exercise) two to three times a week, along with gently stretching your muscles and joints daily.

Your self-medication
. If you use drugs, alcohol, or junk food to relieve your tension, you may be masking or creating symptoms that need professional attention. Get a physical checkup with the basics—blood pressure, blood work, and urinalysis.

Your sleeping area
. Not getting enough rest is both a symptom of and a cause for more stress throughout the day. If you aren't getting your eight hours in, then you should do a “sleep check” to evaluate the hours you spend in bed—your mattress quality, your blankets and pillows, as well as the room temperature, humidity, darkness, and noise factors.

Your accessibility
. Can anyone contact you at any time? Turn your cell phone and BlackBerry ringers and alarms off before bedtime, use caller ID to screen, get off call lists, and move your fax machine where you won't be disturbed by incoming transmissions.