The Discipline of a Beautiful Homemaker: The Discipline of ORGANIZATION (Part I)

Ok. Are you ready for some inner growth? Apparently I am. I think I am... Well, maybe... Hm... Indecisive? Well, that's the point!

I've come to a place in my life where I've realized that something has to change. I'm not  particularly sure what it is, but it definitely has something to do with my home. God's been throwing "random" verses at me, trying to catch my attention and....well... I guess now is the time to pay attention.

So in preparation for tonight's blog I Googled Discipline, Women & Home and crossed my fingers hoping that the results wouldn't be a bunch of macho sites giving instructions on how to discipline women :) To my relief, at the top of the results list was the website Journal For Women. It's a site filled with tons of positive resources for women. But more specifically, within this site, there's a section on The Disciplines of a Beautiful Homemaker. Yup! God's gone all modern. His infinite trove of resources include the World Wide Web!! JAJA!

Mrs. Julie Fink, the author of this article lists 5 Disciplines that make up a Beautiful Homemaker. Today i'm going to reflect on her first one: The Discipline of Organization

Mrs Fink begins.... "The Bible reminds us that God likes things to be organized in I Corinthians 14:40 when He says, “Let all things be done decently and in order.”

As matters of fact, (1) the Creation was done in an orderly fashion and (2) God put tons of energy into inspiring Moses to write Exodus, Leviticus & Deuteronomy - which are filled with orderly rules. God is a God of order and one of the easiest ways to see God's beauty on us in our homes is to be a homemaker w/ an orderly home.

Now... the big question running around in my head is... What is the Discipline of Organization. Mrs. Fink says that it has to do with "training ourselves to have self-control over our tendency to do our work at home in a chaotic manner." She then goes on to list specific examples that are TOTALLY ME!

I think i'm a decent homemaker. My home could stand improvement (couldn't yours?). But, humbly speaking... I think I do alright.

- I wash my laundry in a very efficient and timely manner. BUT i'm not always to quick to fold, iron & put away.
- I start my lunch early enough to avoid last-minute chaos. BUT i never plan my menu ahead of time.
- I get my kids to clean up their messes. BUT I don't encourage them to clean their messes before moving on to another activity.... therefore the mess is huge when they have to clean it
- I have everything I need on my kitchen & bathroom shelves. BUT i tend to run out of toothpaste bc i don't have a detailed shopping list.
- My house looks decent. BUT i don't really clean unless I expect company.

All those BUTS aren't very encouraging. How can I overcome it all? 4 Ideas:

1. ESTABLISH A DAILY/WEEKLY SCHEDULE AND ROUTINE FOR MYSELF
Personal Reflection: I have a rustic schedule... ie. Mon-Fri my kid goes to school, Sundays are church, Saturdays I have school, etc. But only really for the big things. I really admire women who have a laundry day, a shopping day, a baking day, a garden day, shopping day, etc. This week in my weekly Book Reading, a lady from the group showed me her daily schedule (all timed out!!). Impressive! That's definitely on my To-Do List now.

When you can get a perspective of everything that's going on in your day/week, you have a better idea of how to get it all done. There are obvious time-constraints to every person's day. Once you have a to-do list it's easier to fit in (and not forget) the important things that need to get done.

2. MAKING SURE EVERYTHING IN YOUR HOUSE HAS A PLACE
Personal Reflection: :( Can you tell that's a frowny-face? I don't know about you, but i have a lot of "stuff" lying around my house. Lots of it. My home borders on having a cluttered appearance. And it's all important stuff, right? The kids have to have toys to play with. I have to have kitchen stuff to cook with. I have to have clothes to dress. I have to have toiletries. I have to have books to read and paper to write on and pens to write with and... and... and... But all of a sudden it's all on top of each other. I'll go into more detail on how to work on this on the last point of this list.

3. PLANNING MEALS, CHORES, AND GROCERY LISTS AHEAD OF TIME
Personal Reflection:  This one is pretty self-explanatory. Grab your notebook and make a list. FOR EVERYTHING

4. ELIMINATE FROM YOUR HOME THINGS YOU DON'T NEED
Personal Reflection: I'm working really hard on this one. I permanently have a box in an obvious place in my house that i fill up all the time. I try to keep this idea always present in my mind and whenever i look at something in my home i really look at it & ask myself if i really need it. If i think i don't, i toss it in the box. When the box is full I send it to a local charity second-hand store. I get more space in my house & someone else has the chance of having something that's still nice.

The Complete Guide to (Imperfect) Homemaking gives a list of 5 ideas to avoiding home clutter.

The first I already mentioned above (#4). Second is the One-In-One-Out rule. If you buy a new pair of tennis shoes, give away the old ones. If your kid got a new toy car for his birthday, get rid of an older toy. I'm assuming you already have more than you need...Third is to Label Things. I actually haven't tried this one... If you have a box that says Computer Cables on it, chances are you aren't going to put any board games in there. A basket just for folded socks won't be collecting school books. Great idea! Fourth is to not buy just bc it's on sale. If you only (truly) have space in your shirts drawer for 10 shirts, don't go out and buy 2 more. First of all, you don't need 2 more, and Second of all, where are you going to put them?? There's no room! This goes for any other saving space... pantries, closets, drawers, freezer, etc. And Fifth, Don't forget what it's all about! The idea is to create an inviting place, a refuge, our sanctuary. We're doing it for our sake.

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Whew!! That sure was long! If you made it this far in the reading, thanks! I'm honored that you'd accompany me in my journey to self-discovery and improvement. I truly am working on these steps in my day-to-day. Even this "simple" step is overwhelming to me. Thinking of having to find a place for everything that i own is daunting!! Perhaps I'll add an update on how i'm doing with this step in another blog. So for now... if you're interested (or you know anyone) in any of my "things" at home, let me know bc i'm gonna start creating my sanctuary. :)

Words of encouragement will be greatly appreciated!!!