By Scott L. Miley
The Herald Bulletin
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ANDERSON — Deniece Schofield is as organized as you can get.
As a nationally renowned home management expert, Schofield travels the country presenting seminars to show folks that it is possible to manage a home, nurture a family and have time for one’s self preservation.
She is the author of “Confessions of an Organized Homemaker” and “Springing the Time Trap,” among others. She has also served as a spokesperson for Proctor & Gamble. She lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
She’ll be in Anderson at the Holiday Inn Express for two seminars on Thursday. She organized her calendar recently to fit in some questions from The Herald Bulletin.
Q. What common household problems come up in your sessions? And how do you address them?
Schofield: The two most frequently asked questions are regarding handling paper and how to get the spouse/children on board. We spend half of the seminar talking about paper.
I teach a three-part system — turning your calendar into a planner, family organizer and a filing system.
This section also deals with what to keep/not to keep — how long to keep things and how to stop junk mail.
Q. What was the moment in your life that you decided the clutter had to go?
Schofield: I hit bottom after the birth of our third child. I was young and had three children under four. I felt like I either had to leave or do something about my situation. I felt like I was out of control; always putting out fires, but never catching the guy with the matches.
So, I made a list of everything that needed to be done and tackled one problem at a time. This was before organizing was an industry. There were no books, TV shows, magazine articles, or products to help. So I used the trial and error method. When I found something that worked I crossed that item off my list and went to the next problem.
Q. What did your family think of your push to organize their lives and your own?
Schofield: My family was very young when I got organized (admittedly an advantage). So, the children (eventually five) grew up not knowing anything else.
Q. What are two hints for making home life more efficient?
Schofield: As far as handling people – we talk about planning sheets for the kids. These can be digital or paper. Kids need to know in advance what they’re expected to be responsible for so they’ll feel like they’re members of the team – not just water boys.
The spouse is a little different. Make a list of things that you’d like to get done over the weekend, let’s say. Take the list to your spouse and say I’ll do this and this and this, etc. Is there anything on the list that you’d be able to do? The idea is to eliminate nagging, cajoling, guilt, etc. With other people you need to quietly reinforce the system and remember that if this is important to you and not to anyone else, then you’re going to have to be the one who keeps things under control. Hopefully the other people will see that an organized system saves time, money, and stress.
Q. At your own home, what was your toughest organizing job and how did you take care of it?
Schofield: My toughest problem was laundry. It seemed like laundry was always in a state. There were always clothes in the dryer, clothes needing to the washed, clothes that needed to be put away. Laundry was always on my mind.
The first thing I did was to schedule the laundry. I decided to wash on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It took about six weeks before I made the schedule a habit. It was the best thing I’ve ever done.
Four days a week I don’t even think about doing laundry. There are no signs of laundry anywhere, although there are clothes in the hampers. The schedule helped with the kids, too. They knew that if they needed to wear a certain article of clothing they had to get it into the laundry cycle and they knew exactly what that cycle was.
Q. You propose that families can have a neat house and happy kids. Is that really possible?
Schofield: Families can be much happier and less stressed if they have a neat, organized house. However, a person can become too organized. In that case, people leave the home when they want to enjoy themselves.
The goal is to make home warm, comfortable and inviting. That means that you get to the point where you say that it’s good enough. Perfection is paralyzing and invites stress and procrastination.
