IUPUI Human Resources

Reduce/Eliminate Obstacles to Change

If the obstacle is related to time management or failure to set personal time boundaries:

Sign up for the IUPUI HRA training, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (offered on periodic basis) at http://www.hra.iupui.edu/TD_IUPUI.asp. Visit this related Web site, http://www.franklincovey.com/ez/index.html where you can take a stress assessment, a coaching assessment and more.
When cooking, double or triple the recipe so you can eat one meal and put two or three in the freezer for later use. Some good books on this topic are: Once-A-Month Cooking: A Proven System for Spending Less Time in the Kitchen and Enjoying Delicious, Homemade Meals Everyday, by Mary Beth Lagerborg and Mimi Wilson, and Month of Meals: One Day to a Freezerfull of Entrées by Kelly Machel.
Practice ingredient multi-prep. Ex: When cooking ground beef for chili on Monday, brown extra for the tacos you plan to have on Thursday and the spaghetti you plan to have Saturday or sauté enough chicken for chicken salad, chicken Caesar salad and chicken fettuccine.
Consider going to the grocery store once every two weeks or once a month, with a quick weekly trip for perishables.
Look for ways to kill two (or three) birds with one stone. Include the kids as you walk the dog - this allows you to talk with your children, get exercise and walk the dog. Take a project with you so that you can do it while waiting at the BMV, between classes, etc.
Put a dust cloth in a sealable plastic bag and put it in the car. When stopped in traffic, dust the dash, etc. Caution: Never do this WHILE in motion. Get a portable phone with a hands-free headset so you can talk while dusting furniture, cleaning mirrors/windows, making the kids' lunch or loading the dishwasher.
Think about alternatives for getting the job done.
Make a list of all the errands you do (pick up dry cleaning, stamps, etc.) Figure out ways to do get a task accomplished in a new way - order stamps by mail or online, use a dry cleaner that offers pick-up/drop-off, group your errands into one trip and make a list to keep you from forgetting a stop. Investigate ways to get personal things done on campus.
Reevaluate activities that you/your kids are doing? Does the participant really enjoy the activity? Should there be a limit to the number of activities each person can participate in (teaches about prioritization)? In other words, learn to say, "No," to those things that aren't REALLY important and move things of lesser importance to a more workable time or cut back on the number of times you do them. It's not a matter of being mean but more a matter of honoring your values by giving more of your time to those persons/things that really count.
Analyze the source of interruptions that steal your focus (e-mails, phone calls, etc.) and decide when to best handle these by forwarding/delegating to someone else, doing all at set time, etc.
Attend a Microsoft Outlook session to learn about ways to save time by using electronic calendaring, etc. On your own time, add your personal appointments, etc. to your electronic calendar at work so you don't have to manage two calendars. If you have a synchronizable PDA it is even easier.
If something needs to be done on a regular (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly) basis (reordering prescriptions, sending birthday/anniversary cards, changing air filters), put a reminder in your daily "tickle" file or computer calendar (use the recurrence feature so you only need to put in once and set the reminder for several days ahead to allow you to include this with other stops).

If the obstacle is related to living in chaos (a real energy/efficiency sapper), here are some ways to tame the chaos:

First take a hard look at WHERE you are storing items. Does it make sense? How about putting pegs for coats and backpacks, containers for gloves/hats and a shoe rack in an area near the door that you normally enter? How about putting the coffee, creamer and sugar in the cabinet above the coffee pot to save steps? Is the silverware convenient to the table and the dishwasher? Are the cooking tools near the stove? You get the idea!
Now that you have a plan for where things ought to be, dig into those closets or cabinets and go to work. Get several big boxes (boxes that office paper comes in are great) and label: Keep Where It Is, Trash, Donate, Fix (for potential "keepers" that need repair), Move to Back Entry, Move to Cabinet by Stove, etc. Do one area each week.
Once you've decluttered, identify problem areas that still need help and purchase organizers to tame the messes. Here are some examples of organizers: pegs/hooks for coats, leashes, scarves, jump ropes, brooms, mops, keys; laundry baskets; shoe racks; wire racks, cup hooks, spice racks, double-decker spice carousels and plate stackers for inside cabinets and cabinet doors; various sizes of plastic baskets/bins to organize drawers (some are stackable); file pockets to mount on wall (each pocket holds several file folders so you could have one for each of kids, bills, sales/coupons, tax documentation and one for each category of newspaper clippings that you collect - gardening, decorating; credit card receipts' store receipts for returns); filing systems; closet organizing systems; filing cabinets; shelving for garage or basement; decorative trunks with lids for bedroom/family room; sports equipment organizers for garage/mudroom; tool racks, hose racks, bike/hose/ladder hangers for garage; and cabinets for above laundry/workshop area. Note: Think outside the box - use plastic fishing lure boxes with removable partitions for jewelry organizing; use a rectangular, plastic box about 12" long, 6" high and 8" wide (The one I found had a lid but still was best for my purposes because it was tall enough to keep the file folders from flopping over, so I saved the lid in case the box was later used for some other purpose.) to hold standard file folders so you can immediately file bills, sales flyers, etc; or use an expandable daily desk file (has a slot for each day of the month) and file bills, birthday cards and other items into the date that each will need attention, then look in the slot for the day's date each morning/evening and take care of what's there. Most of these items can be found at the hardware store or office supply store but if you want a specialized filing system like FileWISE you may need to search out other sources on the internet.
Go to the Internet and search on "get organized" for more ideas.

If the obstacle is related to expectations of/lack of assistance from others or your own inflexible standards:

Have a pleasant family meeting (no guilt-inducing, please) and talk about the importance of each person helping out so that all members of the family can enjoy the home and some personal time. (That's what family is all about and you'll be giving children skills that will serve them well as they live with others in college and as they have their own families.) Express that you and others are ready to settle for less than perfect, but still reasonable attempts at accomplishing a task - those towels really CAN be folded in other ways, etc.
I know someone who had a list of all the weekly chores that any of the kids could do (dumping all waste baskets into main garbage can, gathering all towels and laundry baskets and taking them to the laundry room, wiping the cabinet fronts and tops in x bathroom, dusting x room, wiping the tub surround in x bathroom, vacuum x floor/furniture, wash mirrors; wash front/back door window, clean x toilet, etc.) and had each child pick several each Saturday. You can also have a box of daily tasks (doing after-meal cleanup; unloading the dishwasher; walking the dog; sweeping kitchen floor, etc.) that each child can pick from each evening. You can also group tasks, color code tasks that need to be done on a certain day or use different boxes for tasks that only older children can do. Once in a while, slip in a card for a task that only needs to be done occasionally (remove cobwebs from ceilings and light fixtures, help Dad rake leaves, wipe flower pots and wash the pot saucers, etc.).