While some home-organization gurus will tell you to start in the kitchen, I’m going to advise beginning in another area. The kitchen will be the third place we attack and this doesn’t make it less important, but I will explain why I’m starting elsewhere.

First, if you look around your home, you probably see lots of clothes. Am I right? You’ve got clothes in closets, you’ve got clothes in piles (meaning to put them away and not having time, eventually just pulling them out of the pile and wearing them), and you’ve got clothes in laundry baskets. You might even have rumpled clothes in the dryer or (heaven forbid!) the washer. If it’s the former, the clothes are only rumpled. If it’s the latter, they’re probably rumpled AND smelly and (potentially) mildew-y. Yuck! Somewhere in this Mt. Vesuvius of laundry, dirty, clean, or otherwise, is your home. And I’m guessing that if you have a laundry room, you keep the door closed, as there are multiple Mt. Vesuvii piling up in there. If you don’t have a laundry room but have a laundry closet (with room for the washer, dryer, and some shelves), I’m betting you haven’t seen the top of your dryer for weeks or even months. It’s covered in rumpled clothes and towels, right?

Have you guessed where we’re starting? That’s right! The laundry area of your home. And here’s why: if you get your laundry room cleaned and organized, you’ll be much more apt to actually DO the laundry that plagues you and helps your home to be disorganized. And because you won’t want to undo the work you’ve done in the laundry room, you’re more likely to fold the laundry when it’s done, and put it away. There’s something that’s a breath of fresh air about a straightened laundry room—sort of like when you walk in to a closet where everything is hanging neatly.

So start with small steps:

Can you see the floor? No? Then pick up what’s on the floor and put it in laundry baskets. If you don’t have enough laundry baskets to accomplish this, then just sort the things in to piles outside the laundry room. I make piles of light clothes, whites, darks, and towels/rags.

Can you see the top of the dryer? If not, put the excess clothes in the aforementioned piles. Grab one rag to dust and have two plastic grocery bags—one to collect junk, and the other for later. Dust the dryer from the lint-leftovers and use a little window-cleaner if it doesn’t come off readily. Don’t neglect the area where the “start” button is—that can be grimy, too!

Can you see the top of the washer? If not, repeat the steps in #2, using the window cleaner if necessary.

Okay - now you’ve got your washer & dryer cleaned off. Congratulations! Let’s continue to take small steps in the laundry room….

Now take a critical look at your supply-shelf. Do you have empty bottles or boxes lying around from spent detergent and/or fabric softener? Clean those out. Use that grocery bag that you’ve put excess dryer lint in and pitch those empties. Then organize what’s left. If you need to add things to your shopping list, now is the time— now you know what you’ve got and what you need to buy. When you organize your supplies, I recommend putting the detergent and any liquid softener above the (gasp!) washer. Make it easy to reach. Put the dryer sheets over the dryer—why reach more than you have to? If your shelves are higher than you’d like, use the top ledge of your washer & dryer to hold supplies! I’ve never seen a washer and dryer that don’t butt up to a wall for the electrical plugs they need. So use that space to your advantage. Put the detergent box or bottle on the top of the washer, along with whatever other washing supplementals you have. Put the dryer sheets on the top of the dryer so you don’t forget and end up with a load of static cling!

If you have wire-shelves above your washer & dryer, you’ve got a built-in place to hang a trash bag. Use that extra grocery-sack and cut one of the handles in half. Then tie those two ends around some of the wire-shelf and use the bag to collect dryer lint and empty containers from your emptied laundry supplies. When it’s full, cut it down and put it in the trash and put up a new one.

Now look at your floor. Does it need sweeping? If so, grab a broom and sweep. It won’t take you more than 5 minutes and you’ll feel much better about your room and your work—especially if something you’ve just washed falls on the floor as you’re transferring stuff to the dryer.

Congratulations! You’ve done the preliminary work of organizing your home—you won the battle in your laundry room! Take a 15 minute break and enjoy this victory. Then start the task of doing the excess laundry that you’ve been collecting—one pile at a time. When the first is done, swap it out immediately to your dryer or to hangers, if that’s more appropriate. Take it one pile at a time—in other words, small steps! Soon, you’ll find that it really only takes 5-10 minutes to fold warm clothes from the dryer and put them in laundry baskets, ready to transfer to the appropriate rooms, closets, and drawers. The rewards are huge here—keep up on it (one load every day) and you’ll win the war against the Mt. Vesuvius of clothes in your home.

Read More About Organizing Your Home

The Essential Guide To Organizing Your Home is your solution. Now you can dive right in with this easy to follow, room by room guide to a clean and organized home.

Stress management wouldn’t seem like something that would be a part of setting goals but it could be the difference between you achieving them and not achieving them.

There is positive stress and negative stress. Positive stress adds anticipation and excitement to life, and we all thrive under a certain amount of stress. Deadlines, competitions, confrontations, and even our frustrations and sorrows add depth and enrichment to our lives.

Our goal is not to eliminate stress but to learn how to manage it and how to use it to help you achieve your goals. Insufficient stress acts as a depressant and may leave you feeling bored or dejected; on the other hand, excessive stress may leave you feeling all mixed up inside.

What you need to do is find the optimal level of stress which will individually motivate but not overwhelm each of us.

How Can I Tell what is Optimal Stress for Me?
There is no single level of stress that is optimal for every person. We are all individual creatures with unique requirements. As such, what is distressing to one may be a joy to another.
And even when we agree that a particular event is distressing, we are likely to differ in our physiological and psychological responses to it. That’s just human nature. The person who loves to arbitrate disputes and moves from job site to job site would be stressed in a job that was stable and routine, whereas the person who thrives under stable conditions would very likely be stressed on a job where duties were highly varied.
Also, our personal stress requirements and the amount which we can tolerate before we become distressed changes with our ages. It has been found that most illnesses are related to unrelieved stress; for example, anxiety disorders, bowel disorders etc.

If you are experiencing stress symptoms, you have gone beyond your optimal stress level; you need to reduce the stress in your life and/or improve your ability to manage it.

Stress symptoms include, but are not limited to:
Anxiety attacks
Headaches
Fatigue
Loss of appetite
Increase of appetite

How Can I Manage Stress Better?
Identifying unrelieved stress and being aware of its effect on our lives is not sufficient for reducing its harmful effects. Just as there are many sources of stress, there are many possibilities for its management.
However, all require work in order to be effective. Changing the source of stress and/or changing your reaction to it. So you might be wondering how do you do it? Let me show you.

1. Become aware of your stressors and your emotional and physical
reactions.
Notice your stress and its beginnings. Don’t ignore it. Don’t gloss over
your problems.
Determine what events stress you out. How much do these events mean
to you?
Determine how your body responds to the stress. Do you become nervous
or physically upset? If so, in what specific ways?

2. Recognize what you can change.
Can you change your stressors by avoiding or eliminating them
completely?
Can you reduce their intensity over time?
Can you shorten your exposure to stress by taking a break, or leaving the
physical premises?
Can you devote the time and energy necessary to making a change (goal
setting, time management techniques, and delayed gratification
strategies may be helpful here)?

3. Reduce the intensity of your emotional reactions to stress.
The stress reaction is triggered by your perception of danger and/or fears
physical danger or emotional danger, and fears of failure etc.
Are you viewing your stressors in exaggerated terms and/or taking a
difficult situation and making it a disaster?
Are you expecting to please everyone because I’m telling you that you
can’t?
Are you overreacting and viewing things as absolutely critical and urgent
all the time? Do you feel you must always come out the winner in every
situation?
Work at adopting more moderate views; try to see the stress as
something you can cope with rather than something that overpowers
you.
Try to temper your excess emotions. Put the situation in perspective. Do
not labor on the negative aspects of everything find a positive in them if
you can
Take personal time to evaluate your surroundings clearly
Take a deep breath when overly stressed and count backwards from 10
Exercise a little bit or take a walk daily

4. Build your physical reserves.
Eat well-balanced, nutritious meals.
Maintain your ideal weight or appearance.
Avoid nicotine, excessive caffeine, and alcohol.
Mix leisure with work. Take breaks and get away when you can.
Get enough sleep. Be as consistent with your sleep schedule as possible.

5. Maintain your emotional reserves.
Develop some mutually supportive friendships/relationships.
Pursue realistic goals which are meaningful to you, rather than goals
others have for you that you do not share because they won’t succeed.
Expect some frustrations, failures, and sorrows and let them go.
Always be kind and gentle with yourself be your own best friend.

Read More About Stress Management

Time Management Secrets for a More Results Oriented Life! is the perfect ebook to teach you how to create more productivity in your daily schedule and ultimately, in life. With less effort, you can now discover how to effectively achieve more of what you want, reduce stress, while remaining focused and productive every single day!