Structure is a powerful tool that anchors healthy habits and cultivates a peaceful homelife. By organizing time, environments, and habits, you can create a foundation for a calm and purposeful life.

Organization can help bring focus to eliminate chaos, cultivate stability, and form a structured life. You can be free to navigate through the environment of your daily homelife without clutter and unpredictability in your routine.

Maybe certain areas of your homelife have become messy due to a lack of focus and prioritizing in your daily routine.

Let’s start with a daily routine to help you begin to have a peace of mind.

First ask yourself:

• Do you have a To-Do list of your daily chores to help you stay on task?
• Have you set your priorities?
• Are you protecting your boundaries by limiting contact with distracting people or activities.

I have found a daily To-Do list necessary to accomplish everything that I plan on doing throughout the week. Not only that, but it helps me avoid distraction and brings clarity and order to my daily routine. I can get a lot more accomplished without having to overthink everything that I have to do for the day.

Here’s the upshot!

Organizing a To-Do list ahead of time eliminates wasting time, and allows you the freedom for things you enjoy too!

Once I’m on my way and complete one task on my list, I can check off a chore box and move on to another. I feel a great sense of accomplishment and peace when each job is complete. Once you begin your new daily routine, you will get the hang of it too! After a while, it will automatically become your daily routine.

Having a great sense of accomplishment is deeply rewarding too.

Below is a general To-Do list provided as an example to help guide you. You can fill in as many chores for each day as you like on your To-Do list, and break it up throughout the week (Monday through Saturday).

Key Points to Keep in Mind:

• Make the daily list of tasks few at first, or pick one single thing to clean and organize a day. I call my quick clean ups the “Ten Minute Tidy”. You’d be surprised at how much you can get done with only ten minutes to focus on cleaning up.
• Commit to just one chore at a time, instead of taking on more than you can handle.
• Focus entirely on starting rather than finishing. I will not even try to overwhelm myself by trying to clean my whole house in one day.
• This is not about perfectionism. It is about training yourself, learning skills, and creating new daily routines that will bring peace and order to your home.
• Missing a chore for the day is a minor bump over to the next day. Ultimately, you will get it done with a smart system in place that builds consistency.
• With your system in place you will be able to make good choices that create a peaceful environment.
• Your system will remove the friction of bad habits and make way for good ones.

Basic Daily List of Chores–

(Customize list as you like)

• Make beds
• Open curtains or blinds to let light in – Do quick tidy of common areas living room, kitchen)
• Do a load of laundry if needed
• Kitchen – Wipe down counters and stovetop after breakfast
• Load/unload dishwasher; run if any remaining dishes or unload the dishwasher
• Take out the trash if a bag is full (I like to throw my trash out after dinner, so the kitchen doesn’t get stinky overnight).
• Living areas. NOTE: high traffic cleaning areas are less demanding for older women without children living at home anymore. I only need to dust and vacuum my living room once a week.
• Dust accessible surfaces in seating areas
• Vacuum or sweep high-traffic zones
• Fluff cushions and throws
• Bedrooms
• Tidy away clothes
• Quick wardrobe check to remove items that don’t belong
• Bathrooms
• Wipe sinks, mirrors, countertops
• Sanitize toilet area and clean any spots
• Refresh towels replace clean ones
• Fold and put away clean clothes
• Change bathroom towels as needed
• Miscellaneous upkeep
• Clutter that needs returning their place
• Water indoor plants if applicable
• A quick sweep of high-traffic areas
• Meal Planner and shopping list for the week
• Meal preparation
• Prepare list for tomorrow
• Set a gentle alarm for the next day’s start. If you would like, you can tailor this to specific rooms, household, or daily time slots

Sounds like a long to-do list doesn’t it? Once you take a step of faith, you will get the hang of a daily routine that suits your family. Before long, your routine will become second nature, and you will have it down pat!

Identify the Clutter:

Unproductivity: Is your daily routine constantly incomplete, are you chronically procrastinating, disorganized, and heavily distracted? Do some detective work to spot bad habits such as:

• Mental clutter – unable to focus
• Major distractions that impact your long term goals
• Toxic thoughts
• Indecisiveness
• Procrastination
• Lack of direction
• Chronic Fatigue
• Lack of self-control

Disorganization: When a woman lacks proper direction, she will struggle daily with her God-given role. God designed her essential role to foster a nurturing home environment and provide family stability. She can suffer greatly when her attention is pulled away from her daily tasks, whether it is:

• A racing mind
• Spending too much time on the phone
• Scrolling on social media
• Indulging in negative self-talk
• People pleasing
• Overthinking
• Spending way too much time outside the home, or overcommitted to anything else (including church activities, volunteer work, and ministry). It will cause her to lose her sense of priorities all together.

Depression and Fatigue: Women’s homes that are cluttered will feel more fatigued and depressed than those that are orderly and restful. Organized homes that have a smart system in place will minimize brain overload and the feeling of being bogged down. Something as simple as clean surfaces will allow her nervous system to relax and re-energize. Removing physical mess clears away the mental fog that causes her irritation and family conflicts. Some common potential outcomes of depression that disrupt over all well-being are:

• Sleep disturbances
• Daytime exhaustion
• Reduced physical activity
• Lack of energy
• Lack of motivation
• Poor nutrition
• Increase of substance abuse

Unhealthy Well-Being is liable to carry over to other areas of your life and affects:

• Your family
• Your health
• Your home
• Your mindset
• Your ministry
• The people you surround yourself with
• The direction of your life

Evaluate the Consequences:

• The responsibilities of the home fall by the wayside.
• Tasks are constantly incomplete
• Being overwhelmed, frazzled, exhausted, and begin avoiding the growing list of things to do.
• Constantly in a disorganized cycle of trying to catch up.
• Visual disorganization restricting the ability to focus.
• Clutter acting as visual noise.
• Every out-of-place item represents an unfinished task or unmade decision, which drains the body, soul, and mind. (Studies show a direct link between physical environments and emotional health).
• Disorganization destroys both inner peace and your environment.

Mind Declutter:

• Prayer and quiet time with God
• Meditate daily on the Word of God
• Speak God’s Word
• Develop the fruits of the Holy Spirit

Create a peaceful home with smoother daily routines that will help you to relax and recover from stress. You will save time, energy, and resources with a home in order. Without all the confusion and disorganization, you will find a more inspired, energized, and well rested life. With a daily system in order, daily life will run smoothly. You will become skilled, efficient, and organized. The way you handle your daily routine with ease not only affects you, but has a direct effect on your family’s environment.

My book “Come Back Home” shares my own path of decluttering my environment and clearing away mental and spiritual overload.

• Uncategorized