{"id":505,"date":"2011-06-22T19:03:10","date_gmt":"2011-06-23T00:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/?p=505"},"modified":"2011-06-22T16:30:12","modified_gmt":"2011-06-22T21:30:12","slug":"preventing-slips-trips-and-falls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/2011\/06\/preventing-slips-trips-and-falls\/","title":{"rendered":"Preventing Slips, Trips, and Falls"},"content":{"rendered":"

June is National Safety Month<\/a>, where each week has a different theme – this week’s theme is preventing slips, trips, and falls. This ties in well with organizing \u2013 as no one wants to be injured unnecessarily. When we have excess stuff around, on the floor especially, we\u2019re putting ourselves at risk. I say this from experience since I\u2019ve bashed my toes more than once \u2013 and not usually from clutter. <\/p>\n

You might remember that I have issues with the term “hoarding” and certainly, the concerns of the families is not limited to the \u201choarders.\u201d We can surmise from the National Safety Council\u2019s<\/a> focus for a week on preventing slips, trips, and falls that this is something that applies to all of us \u2013 clutter or not. Heck, I\u2019ve broken toes from a certain degree of clumsiness. And that was from major pieces of furniture being where they\u2019d always been! (I\u2019ll take a brief moment to promote the idea of wearing shoes where your toes are covered \u2013 and this despite being someone who loves being barefoot. \u263a) If we can prevent ourselves from slipping, tripping, or falling, this is what we all want.<\/p>\n

Whether you have lots of stuff around or not, it\u2019s important to look around \u2013 try to notice those things that we become blind to because we\u2019ve gotten used to them. I\u2019ve tripped over cat accessories, even with them in plain sight. The cat toys now live in a tin, without a lid, over in a corner in our living room. It\u2019s even cute to see the ones that get pulled out and we\u2019re limiting the risk of tripping or twisting an ankle from stepping on them. They also get put back periodically, since if they didn\u2019t they\u2019d be a hazard again.<\/p>\n

Stairs are a popular place to put things down on as they wait for their turn to be carried to the top. I do this frequently since I procrastinate making a trip upstairs until I need to. Are you aware when there are things sitting on the steps? It\u2019s remarkably easy to become a bit blind to a constant pile. I rarely put more on the steps than can go up in one trip, and rarely ignore or procrastinate carrying them up. Items along the stairway are a dangerous hazard \u2013 it\u2019s bad enough to trip on a flat surface, and exponentially worse on stairs.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s topic for the National Safety Month<\/a> interestingly coincided with my finishing a book, Digging Out: Helping your loved one manage clutter, hoarding, & compulsive acquiring by Michael A. Tompkins, Ph.D. & Tamara L. Hartl, Ph.D.<\/a> As a \u201choarding\u201d book, it takes a different approach \u2013 it focuses on helping your loved one make the home as safe (and comfortable) as possible. It examines what I\u2019ve already talked about \u2013 stairs and floors being clear of loose items. They also address other serious hazards \u2013 such as papers on or near the stove.<\/p>\n

Keep in mind any areas that seem to cause problems \u2013 I moved a chest from the foot of the bed since I banged my toes more than once in the middle of the night, to another room. In the spirit of this week\u2019s safety theme, look around your home and office with fresh eyes and see if there are ways to improve safety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the National Safety Month\u2019s week 4 topic (2011), preventing slips, trips, and falls \u2013 I thought I\u2019d apply this to organizing since accidents are more common when faced with hazards in the home. Honestly I can be a bit trip-prone sometimes even when there\u2019s not much there \u2013 so let\u2019s look around for items we\u2019ve become \u201cblind\u201d to and work to keep our homes as safe as possible.<\/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":[10,8,18,19,5,25,4,17],"class_list":["post-505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-organizing","tag-behavior","tag-discipline","tag-goals","tag-hoarding","tag-household","tag-postaweek2011","tag-routines","tag-spaces"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-89","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505","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=505"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":507,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505\/revisions\/507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}