{"id":478,"date":"2011-06-08T19:03:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-09T00:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/?p=478"},"modified":"2011-06-08T13:45:37","modified_gmt":"2011-06-08T18:45:37","slug":"getting-things-to-their-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/2011\/06\/getting-things-to-their-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Things to Their Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was working with a client, and I told her to toss her clothes toward the laundry basket.\u00a0 “Um, huh?” you might be thinking to yourself.\u00a0 The point I was making was that we don’t need to be stodgy and particular about how we do something.\u00a0 We can try to have fun with what we need to do \u2013 not unlike my entire blog post about \u201cMake It Fun.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n

When we\u2019re looking at people not getting things to where they belong \u2013 there\u2019s two situations we might be in:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. we\u2019re leaving things wherever we\u2019re at when we\u2019re finished with them or<\/li>\n
  2. we\u2019re getting them close by, or near their \u201chome.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Therefore, in dealing with things that don\u2019t move from where they were last used \u2013 we can toss things towards where they belong.\u00a0 Of course, you’re not going to throw your CDs at the shelf! The other way is to start baskets\/bins of things that belong in other rooms.\u00a0 I\u2019ll admit that I will often drop that bin off in the other room where it will sit ignored for a few days sometimes.\u00a0 At least it\u2019s in the right room, if not it\u2019s \u201chome.\u201d<\/p>\n

    The situation I described was with a pre-teen girl and I talked about acting like it was basketball.\u00a0 The truth is I\u2019m not into sports and neither was she, but it\u2019s intended as a way to get the items closer to where they belong \u2013 making it easier.\u00a0 She had been dropping her clothes on the floor and leaving them there, which isn\u2019t unusual.\u00a0 Yet trying to make a game of getting the clothes closer to the laundry basket makes it interesting. To some extent, it’s also about retraining ourselves to new habits.<\/p>\n

    Often, I\u2019ll do similar things with paper trash \u2013 throwing them towards the basket.\u00a0 I find myself curious about how close, or not, I\u2019ll be.\u00a0 Or whether if I bounce it off the wall just so, will it make it in.<\/p>\n

    Sometimes we know what we need to do – that item needs to go there, but we still don’t quite get to happen.\u00a0 Right now, I’m not talking about the things we’re undecided on or are still active.\u00a0 You’ve made a home of various things, yet there are still piles.\u00a0 Is there a way to make it more fun – like tossing them?<\/p>\n

    Unfortunately, we still need some discipline.\u00a0 If you toss things towards a basket \u2013 you\u2019ll still need to take some time to put the things where they into the basket.\u00a0 If you move things into the room where they belong, you still need to take some time to put them away within the room.<\/p>\n

    This is the time when your perceptions of time are likely to be exaggerated \u2013 it will take much less time than you anticipate to put them away.\u00a0 Could you time yourself to see how fast you can put all the desk supplies away (once you’ve got them all piled on the desk)?\u00a0 Or set your timer for 10 minutes and put everything away that you can before it goes off?<\/p>\n

    It takes time and practice to make sure things make it back into their \u201chomes\u201d after you\u2019ve used them.\u00a0 I know my suitcases are notorious for sitting out after a trip \u2013 yet we can find ways to improve our behavior in returning things to where they belong.\u00a0 After you\u2019ve identified where you falter \u2013 are things left where they \u201cfall\u201d or do they make it partway?\u00a0 From here, you can begin to find ways to get them the rest of the way home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Are there piles of things that have a \u201chome\u201d yet don\u2019t seem to make it back there? There are two situations where you just leave them where you\u2019ve used them or you get them close to where they belong. You can use the make it fun idea and\/or your timer to improve your results in getting things back to where they live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,8,18,5,9,25,7,22,4,17],"class_list":["post-478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-organizing","tag-behavior","tag-discipline","tag-goals","tag-household","tag-motivation","tag-postaweek2011","tag-procrastination","tag-productivity","tag-routines","tag-spaces"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-7I","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":481,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478\/revisions\/481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}