The Joyful Sort How To: Maintain An Organized Daily Routine During Self-Quarantine

Hi! How’s everyone doing? What day is it again, the 900th day of April? Cool, cool, cool, just checking.

We’ve been self-isolating at home for over a month now and are starting to finally adjust to our new reality. Some days are definitely better than others, but I’m thankful that we still see our home as a place of comfort and cozy even though we’re spending all of our time here.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, it’s okay to not feel or be super productive right now. But studies have shown that regular cleaning and tidying actually helps to decrease anxiety and stress, and I think everyone could use a little more of that these days. Plus, when your home feels better, you feel better (not science, just my opinion). A few small steps every day, or even most days, can go a long way towards controlling what you can control and feeling at ease in your space.

Set the tone with a morning routine.

If there was ever a time for a solid morning routine, this is it. It doesn’t have to be complicated or scheduled down to the minute, but being intentional with your time in the morning can absolutely help set the tone for the rest of the day. A few ideas:

• Make your bed

• Get ready - wash your face, take a shower, change from your nighttime pjs to your daytime pjs (no judgement)

• Start a load of laundry

• Exercise, stretch, or go for a walk

• Diffuse some uplifting essential oils - current favorites here are lemongrass, eucalyptus, and bergamot

• Write out a To Do list for the day (more info on that below)

Mornings have become sort of sacred for us. My boys love a slow start to the day while my husband and I are both most productive in the hours immediately after the coffee jolt hits, so they ease into things with breakfast and some TV while he and I get some work done in our den/office/homework room. We have a 9:15 hard stop for the boys to then brush teeth, get dressed, and make their beds before we spend the rest of the morning working through their remote learning assignments. We write out checklists for each of them each day so that they know exactly what they need to get done and we can all stay on track. Having some structure to the morning means that we can hopefully have more flexibility later in the day for some extra outdoor time or to take the school piece of things more slowly if we’re having one of those not-so-great days and need breaks to regroup.

Automate the basics/stick to The Big Three

Being home all the time now means finally being super on top of all of those regular home things like laundry, cleaning, meal planning - right? Not so much when you add in school and work on top of heightened levels of stress and anxiety that come from navigating a global pandemic. Time somehow feels more crunched than ever.

Quarantine living or not, having a schedule for cleaning tasks and laundry Is a great way to feel like you’re keeping up without the pressure of feeling like you have to get it all done, every day. Maybe you wash towels on Fridays and sheets on Saturdays, clean bathrooms on Wednesdays and floors on Mondays. The key is to break an overwhelming task like cleaning a whole house or working through a never-ending pile of laundry into something manageable enough that it becomes easy to routinely address. Spoiler alert: the house is never going to be fully clean, the laundry is never going to be fully done. So why not make it as easy on yourself as you can, especially right now?

Another option is to limit your To Do list to just three things on a given day: one thing that you Need to get done, one thing that you Should get done, and one thing that you Could get done. Your Need item could be cleaning out your linen closet one day and connecting with a friend on FaceTime for a glass of wine the next - whatever works for how you’re feeling and what you need on that particular day. The Could Do and Should Do items should be low enough on the totem pole that you don’t feel badly if the day goes off the rails and you don’t get to them.

Don’t put it down, put it away.

There was a point last week where I may or may not have slightly raised my voice and expressed frustration that everyone in my house was putting things down, but not putting them away. Not my finest moment (even though it was TRUE), but the practice of just setting things down to be dealt with later is a surefire way to fall into a quick clutter trap. Hang up your coat and return your sunglasses to the junk drawer after your walk, (safely) deal with the mail right when it comes in, put your dishes in the dishwasher right after a meal. Keeping those small tasks under control will help you feel more calm and collected in your space.

If you’re surrounded by family members that aren’t quite as cooperative as you’d like and also tend to leave a trail of belongings everywhere they go, grab a basket or bin or even a spare (disinfected) Amazon box and embrace the notion of what one client hilariously referred to recently as the “F-it bucket” - a designated spot where items that need to go back where they belong can accumulate throughout the day and then be put away all at once. We’ve used these y-weave baskets from Target for awhile as '“upstairs/downstairs bins”, but they’re definitely working overtime right now. Each boy gets their own, we toss things in throughout the day, and they’re responsible for emptying them and returning things to their proper home during our nightly reset (more on that in a bit).

Give new items a home.

Even though we’re not out making casual Target runs, there’s still likely been an influx of new items into your space - a grocery store or Costco stock up, workbooks and supplies that were sent home from school when remote learning started, sanity savers like extra outdoor games or craft supplies. It’s important to give those items a home, even if it’s a temporary one.

It took some shifting, but the utility closet off of our kitchen now holds back stock pantry items so that our small pantry cabinet isn’t busting at the seams day-to-day. The wall baskets that were previously used for all of the paperwork the boys brought home from school are now where we store their remote learning supplies (you could also easily just use their backpacks for this too!). You may set up a little rolling cart for craft or school supplies to keep the kitchen table clear during non-school hours, or temporarily designate a section of a bedroom or closet for extra paper and cleaning products. Whatever it looks like, the goal should be to keep those new additions from cluttering up your most-used daily living spaces.

Make daily resets a priority.

If you connect with only one of these tips, I hope that this is it. I’m a big believer in the power of a nightly reset, and think that it may be more important now than ever. We’ve started doing resets twice a day since we’ve been home, one after the lunch rush and one before bed. Set a timer (10 or 15 minutes is great) and stick to simple tasks like:

• Loading and running the dishwasher

• Taking out trash/recycling

• Clearing and wiping down kitchen and bathroom counters

• Charging electronics

• Folding blankets and fluffing pillows on chairs and couches

This is not the time to try and tackle a big project. Think easy, but focused, with the goal of heading into the rest of the day or the following day a little bit more prepared and clear-headed.

Some days, even one of the above may feel like too much to take on, and that’s okay. But it’s also, I think, more important than ever to maintain a sense of calm and respite at home and I hope that you’re able to take away even a little something from the tips above to help with that.