How to Organize your Home to be a Better Parent

The old adage that tells us how to organize a home, by having “a place for everything and everything in its place” holds just as true today. However, because we live in such an affluent society we often have much more than we need. Even if you are feeling the financial pinch, you are still among the wealthiest people in the entire world. This affluence has brought about a state of affairs where homes and families are brimming to the top with unnecessary stuff.

This excess impacts us in more ways than we can imagine. It fills our homes and creates undetected stress and hardship. It steals our time in many unacknowledged ways. We spend an inordinate amount of time searching for things that we can’t find, and we are robbed of our precious time that is spent trying to organize it all.

The minimalist movement has sprung up as a reaction from many people who grew up in houses with too much stuff who now seek a more enhanced way of living with less stress. While I do not necessarily advocate the minimalist way of life, we can learn so much from the philosophy of having less stuff and regaining time to be with our families.

This is especially true for families with young children but also true for families with grown children. Children require such a tremendous amount of time in their physical care, that we have little time left to nurture their emotional and spiritual well being. This is not a good recipe in today’s confusing world. Therefore it is important to free up time so that we can meet our children’s important emotional and spiritual needs.

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One of the ways of doing this is to organize our homes so that they require less time and maintenance. In homes with little children, it becomes even more essential.

Organize your Time

Imagine a scenario when a mom is trying to get out of the house in the evening for an important school meeting. The kids have been cranky all afternoon and Mom is feeling frazzled and pressured for time. She is trying to keep the kids entertained while cooking dinner. The kids ask for a drink and the doorbell rings. She quickly hands her kids drinks and goes to answer the door.

The encounter at the door lasts longer than Mom had imagined. She finally returns to the kitchen, The food is burning and the drinks are all over the floor. This occurrence on a normal day would leave any mom upset and not in the best mood to cope with her children. Added to this mix, is the pressure to get the kids in bed and get out the door by a certain time, and the heat is on.

So let’s do a rewind and see how the scenario could have played out differently. First of all, if you know that you will be going out and will be under pressure for time, let’s see if we could find time to have that dinner ready with no need to be cooking at the last minute. Perhaps on a Sunday when your spouse is home, you could make time to cook the dinner ahead of time. Now the day that you are leaving will be much less stressful. Cooking the night before, or in the morning if you are not at work, are just some of the number of other possibilities that might work for your family.

You are in Control!

In addition, to a certain extent, you are in control of how your afternoon plays out. We all feel an urge to answer the phone or open the door whenever anyone deems it acceptable to call or to come. But the truth is we have control of when we are available. Not every door knock or phone call needs to be answered the minute it comes. For instance, you can have a sign ready to place on your door that says, “Dinner time, please do not disturb”. Now you are in control and you need not be disturbed when an interruption may throw your efforts to the wind.

When my children were growing up, we had a rule that no phones would be answered during dinner. All the kids knew that if the phone rang, it would not be answered. In the 21st century we have voice mail and answering machines, and therefore do not have to be at the bidding of anyone who calls. Nothing ever was missed by returning a call after dinner. This was also a powerful message to our kids that family time is sacred.

Thinking about what your family needs especially during pressured times, can make the difference between a relatively calm and peaceful household and one that is constantly wrought with stress.

Organizing your Physical Space

Organizing your physical space can have a tremendous impact on the smooth running of a home. But simply organizing in beautiful bins is not enough. The bins take time to maintain. Where many systems fall apart (from my personal experience!) is that when we have too much, it requires much too much time to be constantly taking out unnecessary stuff and putting it back.

This is where purging becomes so important. By really analyzing our possessions, and how they are impacting our lives, we can let go of unnecessary things. A book that has helped me with this sometimes difficult process is Marie Condo’s book. She shows you the method and the requirements for letting something go or keeping stuff in your life:

Particularly when your children are small it is so important to maintain a streamlined and stress-free environment.

Stress-free Systems

Clutter is not the only area that needs to be considered when creating a stress-free organized environment. A smooth running home creates a peaceful environment. Think about taller upwards storage when you organize your home. Storage does not have to be expensive. Consider simple storage such as this unit, to store essentials and toys. Toys can remain on the lowest shelves for easy access, and more fragile items can be placed above.

There are many variations to this type of storage. My daughter uses Ikea cubby holders such as this:

with color coded containers like these:

Here is another alternative:

Daily Systems

Take a walk around your home and see where you could benefit from implementing systems that will make your life easier. In raising a large family, I needed my kids to be able to do certain things on their own. The constant laundry was a challenge. I devised a system with Elfa drawers that saved me tremendous time and effort. First, I stacked two Elfa systems like this, on top of each other:

I then labeled (or for smaller kids, add pictures) each drawer. There were drawers for whites, darks, and colored clothing as well as towels, sheets and delicates. One of the drawers was for dry cleaning and one was for handwash. The kids did all of the sorting by placing the proper piece of clothing in the right drawer. This saved me endless hours of removing clothes, sorting them and putting them back. In addition, if I only had a few minutes, I could grab a pre-sorted load from one of the baskets and just throw it in the wash. One small system saved me hours and hours of work.

In the Kitchen

Another place to add systems is the kitchen. Dishwashers are a tremendous help, but they do require daily loading and unloading. Sometimes we don’t have enough dishes for a full load and will need them again before it is time to do a run. I have found these mats to be of great help. When I only have a few dishes and perhaps a pot, I pull out these ingenious mats:

I can use these to do a few dishes and quickly dry them and put them away. I don’t have to drag out a full-size dish drainer. These are quick, easy and I usually don’t need more than two mats at a time. And there are no unwieldy dish drainers sitting on the counter.

By closely examining your home, planning ahead and developing systems, you can organize your home and become a better parent. With so much to do, as parents today, we need to think about how to organize and streamline every aspect of our lives. I hope that doing so will bring you more peace and allow you to be a better parent. I hope that you have found this helpful and please like and share with your friends.

For other ways to organize your home and create a peaceful environment go here