Today’s blog post is from Janine Adams, the instructor of our newest online workshop Simplify Your Life with Habits + Routines! In today’s post, Janine shares how habits and routines have helped Janine, a self-proclaimed “messy” person, maintain order and simplify her life. If you think habits and routines are a recipe for frustration—think again! As Janine shares in this post, habits and routines can actually eliminate annoyances and make what was once difficult become easy. Follow Janine’s four simple tips to get started simplifying your life with habits and routines!

I’m a certified professional organizer, but I’m not a born-organized person. For me, becoming organized has been a journey. One reason I became a professional organizer was to share with others some of the strategies I’d learned for becoming organized.

Even though I’m now quite organized, I’m still messy.  I have a good organizational infrastructure in my home and I’m great at decluttering, but I have a hard time remembering to put things away. I don’t really see mess, so things can get pretty bad before I act.

Throughout my life, as a result, I’ve lived with messes. Not monumental messes, but certainly what most people would consider disarray. When I was younger, it was worse than it is now. Since I opened my organizing business in 2005 and really started exploring the value of habits and routines—and watched how they’ve helped my clients—I have been able to implement habits and routines that make my life run smoothly.

For me, habits and routines have been absolutely instrumental in maintaining order in my home. They allow me to get stuff done without forethought. They just make my life easier.

You can make your life easier by incorporating habits and routines too. Here’s how to get started:

1.  Rethink any negative associations you might have with the word routine. The word itself may make you think they’re boring, but they’re really magical in the way they can transform your day. Can you think of any existing habit or routine that you have in your life that has made your life better or easier?

2.  Make a list of any annoyances you’d like to eliminate. Then brainstorm habits you could create that would help you get rid of them.

3.  Choose one habit to start working on. Really, let it be that easy!

4.  Link that new habit with something you’re already doing on a regular basis to create a routine. That will make it easier for you to establish the new habit.

Habits and routines are truly powerful. Even if you’ve tried without success to create new habits in the past, I encourage you to give it another try. Use the four simple steps above to set yourself up for success—and a simpler life—this time around!