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The Essence of Family Organizing

Try to find ways of organizing that are a win-win for everyone in the family. Give each other the benefit of the doubt when you are sharing tasks or trying to find a place for things. If you can, find a way to build new habits and systems together over time. Randy and Rick were both highly disorganized. When Randy decided she was ready to get more organized, it wasn't easy. She explained, "At first, Rick experienced any attempt I made to plan ahead or get organized by making places for things as controlling. Finally, he started to see that if we put things back in the same place, we could find them again. He experienced the logic of 'a place for everything' because it made his life better. He mostly replaces items when he is finished with them, but that was a tough fight."

Organizing Shared Spaces and Managing Possessions

One challenge of family life is to shape our spaces so that we each feel a sense of home, even when we have different tastes, styles, and different levels of tolerance for mess. This challenge includes wisely managing our desires for the many luscious-looking toys (for all ages) and the fantastic variety of products that the American marketplace is so adept at producing. Then, when we have the many things that we have purchased, deciding together how can we store them and use them so that they are valued. And, finally, families must face how to agree to give things away when they are outgrown or no longer fill the purpose they once did.

Sometimes, organizing is catching. Suzanne, who is a massage therapist, sees clients in her home. She decided to prune her books in the family room, without making a big deal about it. Then her husband noticed and joined in. Then her daughter got involved and organized all of her makeup in the bathroom. "I now spend a little more time straightening up and a lot less time being mad about how the place looks," Suzanne said. "Then, an interesting thing happened, I cleaned up the whole family room and it looked beautiful. My daughter came back from a school trip and she said, 'Mom, the family room looks great, but I notice that you didn't touch my room; does that mean it's my responsibility?'"

Managing shared spaces and shared possessions reflects a great deal about your family life. Often, though, people haven't given much thought to how to do this together. Here are some guidelines that can help your household with managing space and things.

1. Recognize that people get their sense of home in very different ways. For some people, the visual field is very important. What they see communicates their sense of home. Lots of objects around may bother them. Other people are more kinesthetic. They'll get a sense of home from the feeling of being in the space and the texture of the items around them. Talk about what your shared aesthetic is and where you differ. Build on your shared values and make sure that each person has spaces that reflect what really matters to them.

2. Plan your big purchases together, and make sure that you have all identified places for your new things.

3. Regularly give away unused and outgrown belongings together. Create a ritual of giving things away to a cause that matters to you.

4. Discuss and create written guidelines for how you would all like your common spaces to look in terms of amount of stuff versus spaciousness, aesthetic style, standard of cleanliness, and so on.

5. Get off to a good start in the morning by preparing the night before. Make lunch, put out clothing, leave briefcases, cell phones, and knapsacks by the door. Put cereal boxes and bowls on the table. Leave as little as possible to the morning rush.

6. Have a fifteen- to thirty-minute cleanup/get ready time before going to bed. Depending on the ages of children in the household, this could be as early as 7:30 and as late as 10:30. Take turns choosing the cleanup music, then everyone pitches in to put everything away, wipe off counters, and get set up for school and work in the morning.

Not only will these guidelines help you to create a more harmonious home, they can also lead to stronger family bonds, as well as opportunities to put your values into practice. Twice a year, Robin and Ali and their three kids go through the household, purging toys, books, and clothes, collecting and bringing them to the local homeless shelter. They all do their purging at the same time, so it has become a family activity. They know their possessions are going to people in need, reinforcing the family's belief in giving back to the community.

Sharing Household Tasks

Who will do which household tasks? This is often an area of constant negotiation. The question is challenging whether there are two full-time workers and children too young to pick up after themselves; only one working adult and teenage children; or two able-bodied adults in the house who have different values about homemaking. Lynne Weygint, coauthor of The Joyful Family, is a professional organizer who helps families get organized. She often works with families in which all members are overbooked and no one has any time to do the household tasks. The challenge that she sees is that often both parents work, and neither parent has developed the skills to run a household efficiently. In addition, the children have a full plate of after-school activities as well as homework. No one has the time or energy to take care of the basic tasks.

In these cases, just getting the laundry done can be daunting. She has seen households where the family might be fifteen loads of laundry behind. At times, the laundry challenge can come from the lack of a laundry system, or it can come from too many clothes. How many pairs of jeans does each child need? How many khakis? Two or three, but some children have seventeen pairs of jeans and throw them into the laundry at the end of each day. Her recommendation to overwhelmed families is to list the areas where individuals are feeling the most stress, and design systems that will substantially reduce or eliminate the stressors.

This family might want to decide on a reasonable amount of clothes for each individual, so that they are beginning a laundry system with an appropriate amount of clothing. A laundry system that has been successful with several of Ms. Weygint's clients is for the family to purchase three large laundry baskets, each one about the size of a large load of laundry. Label the first one "whites," the second basket "darks," and the third "mediums." Each family member (above the age of five) sorts his or her own laundry each day into the three baskets. The baskets should be centrally located, ideally in the area where the laundry will be washed. On the day that a basket is full, it gets washed, dried, and folded by the individual whose task it is to do the laundry. Family members rotate laundry duty either daily or weekly, depending on a prearranged schedule. In a family of three to five individuals, there will be between six and eleven loads of laundry a week, including bed linens and towels.

Here are some other tips for sharing household tasks:

1. Create a family attitude that recognizes that household tasks are an important way of supporting a comfortable family life. As best-selling author Sarah Ban Breathnach says, "Getting our houses in order, and endowing our children [and ourselves] with a respect for and an appreciation of order, is one of the most precious gifts we can give them and ourselves."

2. Recognize that people often slide into agreements about who does what household tasks. They often resent what they "slid" into and may neglect to take quality time to reevaluate the success of agreements that they have made. Allocate family time to seriously evaluate the success of your systems in accomplishing your family goals using "learning conversations."

3. It helps for each person (older than age five or so) to take responsibility for cleaning up after themselves. Everyone should make their own bed, empty their own trash, and put their own dishes in the dishwasher.

4. Create a plan for sharing tasks that builds on people's natural affinities for the work that must be done. For example, let the one who likes to cook, cook. The one who is good at household repairs should do those repairs. Then, divide up the main tasks: collecting and putting out the garbage, doing the dishes, shopping, laundry, and so forth. Sarah Ban Breathnach also suggests the following principles for self-responsibility that everyone should be expected to follow:

• If you take it out, put it back.
• If you open it, close it.
• If you throw it down, pick it up.
• If you take it off, hang it up.
• If you use it, clean it up.

5. Treat doing household work as a collective, worthwhile set of tasks, supporting the creation of a shared homey space. Make housework more pleasant by choosing musical accompaniment for clearing the table or create "laundry time" when everyone sorts and folds their laundry together in front of a favorite TV show.

6. Appreciate each other's contributions. When your partner makes the bed or your child sets the table, don't forget to say "Thank you." It helps when everyone is looking for small ways to appreciate each other.

Melinda had to formally resign as "maid of the house" in order for her family to start contributing to their share of housework. She explained to them that now that the children were teenagers, she would no longer be doing their laundry, nor would she do all of the cooking and cleaning up after meals. She acknowledged that she had perpetuated her role as "maid" and that it would take some time to reallocate responsibilities. She had given her husband a "heads up" that this was coming and they held a family meeting to decide together what to do next. They adapted a "win-win" system that she had found in Stephen Covey's book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families in which the children's clothing allowance was dependent on their pitching in with the laundry. When they did their laundry, they got their clothing allowance. No laundry, no new slacks or dresses.

Helping Children Do Their Share of Household Tasks

Keeping the house clean and organized can be a challenge in homes with children, but it is not impossible. If children learn responsibility for helping out around the house, and are taught basic organizing principles from an early age, they can avoid some of the problems we find ourselves experiencing as disorganized adults. Gary, a highly successful lawyer, says that his three boys tended to be disorganized like him. Part of his incentive for becoming more organized was seeing how his children were modeling themselves after him. It was important to him that his kids learn to pitch in, and he realized that they didn't mind doing work around the house as long as the tasks were split equitably. "They don't like it when we ask them to do more than their brothers have to do. Everybody clears and rinses their own dishes and puts them in the dishwasher. Fred takes out the garbage, Harris sets the table, and Donald brings down the laundry. They all make their own beds. If they think it's fair, they have no problem doing it. I try to help them build good habits now and I tell them that my life would have been a lot easier if I had been more organized."

Here are some guidelines for getting children involved in the collective effort of maintaining a well-organized home:

1. Model your own standards. Children learn more from what you do than from what you say.

2. Adjust your attitude. If you hate housework, chances are you will teach your children to hate it as well. If you secretly think that cleaning up is women's work, your children may pick this up. Gloria told her ten-year-old son that he needed to be more conscientious about picking up after himself. She was shocked when he informed her that he didn't have to clean up after himself because his (far-into-the-future) wife would pick up after him. She figured out that her 1950s upbringing and attitudes must have been leaking through.

3. Once you assign a task, let your child decide how to get it done (within reason). Teach them how to make their own beds and let them do it, even if it isn't perfect. An easy bed-making system is a comforter with a duvet cover. They can pull the comforter over the bed, and, poof, the bed is made.

4. Be matter-of-fact about housework. Cleaning up is not a punishment. It is an integral part of taking care of ourselves well. Give everyone household tasks as soon as they are old enough. Even a three-year-old can pitch in. Don't disdain household tasks or make them appear as undesirable work. Rather than call them chores, call them tasks, jobs, housework, or other more neutral terms.

5. Have patience and refrain from cleaning up for your children; let them take some time to pick up after themselves. Leave "cleanup and put-away" time at the end of activities. It may be easier now to clear up after them, but you can help them build useful lifetime habits if you can be more patient.

6. Make sure that there are plenty of places for children to put things away at a lower level that they can use without your help. Clear out closet and drawer space for them. Put shelves and hooks at their level.

7. Teach your children to put one toy back before taking another one out to play with. It gets distracting and confusing for children to be in a place with toys all over the floor. And as they put them back, they learn to treasure their playthings.

Wendy Mogel, parenting specialist and author of The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, says that what makes it hard for parents to assign household tasks to children is their own ambivalence about the value of the tasks. And it's often just quicker and easier for parents to do the jobs themselves. "If we aren't sure chores are necessary to our children's growth, why go to all the trouble of assigning them? The fewer chores we require of our children, the more free time and peace we will have." Once parents determine that there is value in assigning, however, they often stumble on which tasks should be assigned when. Three-year-olds can carry their plates to the table and help put their toys away at the end of the day. Four-year-olds can water plants and put their dirty clothes in a hamper. Children of all ages can straighten their beds. As children get older, they can take care of their own room and help set the table. Participating in caring for themselves and their home gives children a sense of mastery and the feeling that they are making an invaluable contribution to the household.

Some parents feel very strongly that their children should be spared household tasks. Anita held that belief when her children were little, wanting them to be children as long as possible without any household responsibilities. As the years went by, she was faced with the fact that her preteens had neither the inclination nor the habit to help around the house. She says, "I wish I had given them tasks when they were younger. Now they have the feeling that I am meant to clean up after them, and I can only get them to pitch in when they feel like it, which isn't that often." Melinda, who resigned as "maid of the house," says, "I wish I had taught my son how to pitch in earlier; I have an entitled prince of a son."

Giving children the responsibility of contributing to household tasks helps them develop the self-reliance they will need later. Wendy Mogel points out, "The lessons we instill by insisting that our children do mundane tasks may very well be the ones that stay with them longest, helping them to become self-reliant adults, responsible community members and loving parents."

Making and Keeping Agreements

Families often struggle with respect to time and punctuality. They need to figure out together how to make and keep agreements so that they can build trust and confidence in one another. Each morning, nine-year-old Johnny knew that he had to finish his long shower only when his parents started yelling at him, "Get out of the shower." Even though they regularly reminded him of water scarcity and the importance of limiting his showers, he seemed impervious to their exhortations. Finally, they put him in charge of timing the shower by giving him a timer and a three-minute guideline. At that point, he was happy to take responsibility for getting in and out of the shower in a timely way. His reward was built in: more time to play with their puppy each morning.

You may want to use some of these guidelines to help you make and keep family plans and agreements.

1. When planning ahead, get input from all family members on their preferences.

2. Make your agreements explicit. Sometimes, one person thinks that a commitment has been made and the other person is unaware of it.

3. When one person thinks an agreement has been made and the other person didn't follow through, review what happened so that you can learn where the breakdown occurred. Was it in the original request? Were there different perceptions of the importance of the agreement? Was there an unclear time line? For example, I agreed to call the electrician, but I didn't say when. My husband expected me to call immediately, while I assumed that calling within a week would be time enough. Remember that agreements will have differing levels of importance for each person.

4. Recognize that people have very different senses of time. The person who is always running late is probably not doing it on purpose. They often don't know how to be on time and may need compassionate support to learn time management skills.

5. When you have events that you need to arrive at in a timely way, try back-casting together so that you have a shared detailed perception of what is required in order to be there on time.

6. Plan a buffer. If you need to leave at 8:15 to be at the airport well before flight time, plan to leave at 8:00. That will give you some time for all the unforeseen things that can take place before traveling.

7. It is helpful to create ways for children to learn to be responsible for their own time, such as giving them a timer.