Hey it's Abby and my surroundings might look a little bit different this week because we are
filming this video while on vacation since we didn't have access to our own
house to show you an organized space I thought instead I would tackle one of
the most common questions that I get about organization I have women who to come
to me and say I would love to be organized but my husband and kids make it really
difficult how do I get them on board and instead of me just answering that
question I thought bringing my husband Donnie and our two boys Connor and Caleb
who are 8 and 6 to help me so you're going to see a little bit of the whole family today
so first i sat down with Donnie to kind of get his take on the whole organization
as the husband thing and then at the end we'll talk to each of our boys for a
little bit so who would you say is the most organized person in our family I
would say probably me I mean me you're you're really organized
and everything you organized looks really pretty it looks really nice but I
feel like I have a spot for everything and then if anything gets out of place I
make sure it's back where it needs to be as soon as possible but I mean we're
both pretty organized but I would say maybe I'm a little bit more organized
maybe I'm wrong I will say that you're more organized but in my defense you only organize
your stuff and then I organize my stuff and boys' stuff so I have three people
that's true and you have one person I kind of ignore their playroom
we all try to do that yeah okay so what are like what are your jobs in our house what
do you do to keep help keep things running smoothly and help keep it organized
what are you in charge of the big things are taking care of any incoming mail I
get that I get the mail every day put it in a pile and then I eventually scan it
and work my way through that and pay the bills so I'm in charge of all the paperwork
organizing all of that type of stuff I would say also in the kitchen I always
do the dishes so I make sure, it seems like I do the dishes two or three
times a day but I always make sure you know the kitchen is clean and everything
is wiped down those are those are the two main areas what are some of your
favorite organization systems that we have in place in our house I would say
the paperless system that we have it was it was years ago there's a lot of work
to get that into place and to get the routine down and to have the strategy
for dealing with all the paper and getting rid of the
filing cabinet but now that we've been doing that for years it's super easy to
maintain and I feel like if I have all the mail all the bills like any
important email like everything just organized in one place where I know
where it's at I can find it I can deal with it then everything else seems to to
go more smooth around the house it's more smooth the right way smoother
Smoothly yeah so I think that that's probably my favorite system I also like
that we have specific jobs so there's a lot of things around the house where
like we know whose responsibilities so we are never wondering like I was a be
going to do that or should I do that is Donnie going to do that or should I do
that you always do the laundry I always do the dishes I mean we both work
together picking up the house and that type of thing but we kind of have like
specific roles and I think that helps because I know I know what I need to do
and I'm not you know waiting around for someone else to take care of it and I
think that's taking a long time to kind of figure out I think when we first got
married we didn't really have like the specific responsibilities but I mean 10
years later now we kind of know what we need to do what the other person needs
to do and we're like if we think something needs done by the other person
we're okay tell them about your okay tell them that telling each other well
and I think different phases of our life in our marriage too have been different
like when we didn't have kids it was a lot easier to just
kind of naturally keep the house maintained and then when you were
working like a corporate job and I was at home with the kids I did more of
the home stuff because I was home and you were you know out working and now
that we both are like work from home parents it's more evenly split yeah we
have a good routine with that too. so it definitely depended on like the phase what we were
in yeah and I remember when we moved into the new house about a year ago
we kind of had the opportunity I consciously thought about okay I'm in a
new place like I don't have all these old routines anymore like it's kind of a
fresh start so I think we did talk a little bit about that about the
different responsibilities and like it was just an opportunity to kind of start
fresh so I talk to a lot of women who say like I would love to be organized
but my husband is just not on board with the whole organization thing so I have a
couple questions about that first and I haven't looked at these questions before
so don't judge my answers so first I would ask like I think
you do a good job of like being on board and helping keep the house
organized but like what motivates you to be like that into to want to keep our
house organized what motivates me yeah why why are you willing to be on board
I guess it's well because I I'm the type of person I want a clean space the other
thing that motivates me is having like a specific job I mean I hate I think a lot
of guys are like this where they don't they're not sure exactly what they
should be doing or how they should help out but like if you have a specific job
like your job is to you know do the dishes every single day or your job is
to deal with all the mail and keep that all organized like something specific where like
this is your job this is this is my responsibility no one else's I think
that's motivating because then it then I know it's all on my plate and I think
that's good instead of like kind of passing these jobs back and forth yeah I
think that's helpful too because I would say and this is not like ripping you
or ripping me in general but even you who is a naturally organized person like there
are things that you just don't see if the boys leave the stuff out or like our
mud room is a mess or something he'll let walk right over stuff and walk out
the door and I literally think that you like it just doesn't
dawn on you that you could pick it up and that's not like a fault
like I but I think that's where those responsibilities come into play
especially because I look at it and say he just stepped over that and didn't pick it
up or like I've laughed before because you say there's
milk spilled here and then you'll walk away from it but like it just doesn't
but it doesn't like dawn on you so but when you know that something
is like you are on top of the dishes all the time because you know that's your
responsibility. You know what I mean? yeah and so sometimes I think if it's not my job I'm kind of
blind to it. right! I think there's blinders on but not on purpose
He doesn't look at it and say like oh that's Abby's,
Abby has to clean up here's some milk Abby you clean this up like that's
never your intention or your motivation it's just like you know that's not
on your plate like that's not something that that it just doesn't hit
you to do that and I think a lot of guys are like that. We're more tunnel visioned. So if we have a job that
we know we need to do we're really good at getting that done but everything else
on the side we just have a hard time. Your brain is just focused on certain tasks
yeah you just processes different thing I think that's true that's true
anyway okay so the second my follow-up question to that is like do you have any
advice for those women who like their husbands are they're having trouble
getting them on board with the organizing like what advice would you
give them like as far as like bringing it up with their husband or how to talk
about it or how to like kind of get them on board and establish things from the
male perspective yeah I think if there is if there's a girl out there and she
wanted her husband to be more organized or was frustrated about that I would
say if she offered and he's maybe he's not good
type of thing or just doesn't think about it maybe if she offered to help
him organize one of his spaces first I think he would appreciate that like
maybe his like tools are a mess or like all of his sporting equipment is a mess
or something in his office is a mess maybe if she helped him with that first
and they kind of work together with that and then he kind of sees the result
it's like oh wow this is nice you know I can find everything I need I can
find my tools I can walk into my office and I can find everything I mean that
may encourage him to get on board and then second thing is just give him a job
I mean in a nice way let me make sure make sure you tell them it like you
really appreciate it and it means a lot and it's so important and I mean maybe
like let him pick like like you have dishes have you come your thing and
laundry has become my thing because like you've never minded the dishes but you don't
really like love laundry so like if you're more willing to do
it, that was like kind of your choice yeah that'd be nice yeah and if
there's a wife who is really good at organizing is always neat and clean and
on top of that type of thing and her husband isn't she can just give him like
a specific job is great just say hey honey this week
could you take everything out of the fridge throw away old stuff and like
wipe it all down that's perfect because, not that that's a fun job to do, but it's
like super specific he's like okay like this week so he knows it has to be done
this week I have to do like this very specific thing we're like hey honey this
week can you wash the car and vacuum it out and take all the trash out again
like really specific and like something doable not like hey can you go organize
the entire garage this weekend like that this very demotivating but like the
smaller jobs to get them started I think are a good thing and I think the
one thing when you said about on your first point about like me doing it with
you like I know a lot of times if you really like it when we tackle a space
together or like as a family like you'll say like you're willing to do it
but you'll say like can we on this Saturday can we all you know work on
this section of the garage together and so if I am willing to kind of come in and
do it alongside you It makes it way better for bigger jobs and you won't be grumpy
while we're doing it. no I would never be grumpy I'm right there and you're there. no, if we put it on the
calendar and so I know all week okay Saturday morning for four hours we're
going to be cleaning out the garage together that's awesome because then I'm
like planning for it I prepared for it but like if it's Saturday morning and like
sometimes Abby gets really ambitious like all of a sudden just like out of
nowhere she wants to do some huge project and I'm like I mean that's like
our entire weekend like let's plan this out a little bit. He wants me to give advanced notice.
For me advance notice is good purchases like when you want to
make a big purchase you got to start working on little by little the same
with organizing. it works but yeah for
the big projects having it planned out having it on the calendar I think is
the way to the way to do it I feel like I even learned a couple of new things
from Donnie when he was talking about being organized and how I can help him
to want to be more involved in the organization in our house as well now
let's talk to the boys Connor is 8 and he's heading into third grade and Caleb
just turned six and he will be in kindergarten in just a couple weeks so I
sat them down and asked them a couple questions and here's what they had to
say who would you say is the most organized person in our family you
because you have a You Tube channel about it and you have a blog about it
You! You think daddy's pretty organized too? No. what are some of the jobs that you
help wtih in our house to help keep things
organized I take out the trash, I unload the dishwasher and clean the room
when the car is messy I help clean it out.
Empty the dishwasher clean my bedroom. which of those jobs do you really like to do?
none of them. you don't like to do any of them? my last favorite clean it up my
playroom because I always make a mess in it but my brother helps me
clean it up and my second worst job to keep the house clean is taking out the trash. Ugh.
So what are some of the things that mommy and daddy do to encourage you to
help us keep the house organized? they make charts that are laminated and every
time you do a thing on the chart you check it off. They give me an allowance.
and do you just automatically get the allowance or what do you have to do? no you
I have to unload the dishwasher and take out the trash. what are some other things
that mommy and daddy do to encourage you to help keep the house organized?
They set a timer for cleaning up and if we get the job done at that time, we win.
Do you like when things are organized in our house? yes because then
then I can find everything when I'm looking for it. what would you say is your
favorite organized part of our house? my bedroom cause like when I go to bed
everything is like on my nightstand and ready. my bedroom because then I can sleep better
at night and when I'm on vacation like right now I sleep on this I sleep on
this bed right here just looks like a couch but here's a secret: the bed is
inside the couch. Would you say our house is always
clean and perfectly picked up all the time?
no. no, what does it look like some times? that a volcano erupted and there's
everything scattered everywhere. What about your playroom?
Ha! that is always messy and stinky! the boys are right! You know, even though I
love to organize I am the first one to admit that our house does not look
perfect 24/7 there are plenty of times where it looks like a tornado went
through but to me organization is not about being perfect all the time it's
about having great systems in place so that everything has a home so that when we're
ready to pick up it's easy to get everything back into place so clearly
everyone's husband and kids are going to be different but hopefully hearing
Donnie and our boys' perspective on keeping our family organized to help you come up
with some ideas that you can use with your own family as well. Let me know in
the comments who the most organized person in your family is and what you do
to get the whole family on board with organization. Have a great day!