In the article, ‘Dear Real Simple, I’m a Control Freak. Please Help,’ the subject writes to the popular lifestyle magazine for solutions with managing her compulsively organized tendencies. The subject admits in the article that her perfectionist, Type A habits are taking a toll on her marriage, often alienating friends and family as she is too consumed with her to-do list and do not make time for others. Is there more to life than just beaming over a gleaming floor?
You know your daily to-do list stretches on endlessly. You have better things to do with your evening than spend it scrubbing the house from top to bottom, but the earlier hours of the day were already taken up by other tasks, and someone has to do it. Whether you have a career that takes center stage in your life or you are a stay-at-home spouse or parent, there are never enough hours in the day to accomplish everything. How many of those items on your to-do list are really important? Life is passing you by. Find balance with the help of these tips:
Let Go of the Little Things. This is especially true if you have small children at home. With kids, things are never perfectly tidy until they go to sleep. You can spend the time after they are tucked into bed crazily running through the house, trying to make everything shiny and pretty so that they can mess it up again the next morning, or you can take a deep breath and accept that some things are not worth obsessing over. By accepting a little bit of clutter in your life, you will discover that it frees up your schedule for the more important things.
Prioritize Your Cleaning Habits. There is a difference between clutter and dirt. The pile of blocks in the middle of the floor that somehow magically reappears no matter how many times you remove them? That pair of shoes that your spouse kicks off in front of the couch and never seems to pick up again the next morning? Those are clutter. The counter that is smeared with peanut butter or the sink full of dirty dishes? Those are dirt and may need to be taken care of.
Let Go of ‘Stuff.’ There is something very freeing about accepting that you do not have to keep possessions that are not useful to you or that serve no purpose in your life. Have you been holding on to something simply because it was a gift, even though you have no idea what to do with it or have never used it? Do you have duplicates of a tool that you really only need one of to get by? Go through your home and box or bag things that you do not use for donation. This will accomplish several things: First, any item that you get rid of is one that you no longer have to pick up and put away. Second, cleaning out your storage space gives you back valuable room for the things that you do want.
Delegate. Consider hiring someone to take on some of those tasks, plopping your entire to-do list on someone else’s shoulders. By delegating tasks to professionals, it will free you up to take care of the really important things in life, and that is enough to let anyone take a breath of fresh air.
Image credit: Mike Nay
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