written by Joel Kribel for SIYP
Get Organized to Benefit the Entire Family?
Yes! When you get organized, it empowers you to be more successful and leads to a happier life – and more successful life – for your kids too.
Alright all you fathers out there… I am generally not one for telling other people how to live their lives, but you owe it to your kids to get organized. Weird request, right? But what if by doing so, you were able to make them into better people, possibly more successful people? It just might be true.
At surface level, it might not seem like a very logical conclusion to draw – that YOU getting organized might allow for your children to become more successful. However, if we dive just a bit deeper, there is some research (and a little bit of inference) which supports that notion.
A study by IKEA in the early 2000s on why it’s important to organize your office found the following:
“Men who organize their home offices are more likely to spend time playing with their children than men whose home offices are in disarray.”
Makes perfect sense. The less time we have to spend looking for lost items, the more time we will have to focus elsewhere.
The average American wastes almost an hour a day looking for lost items that they own but cannot find, according to Newsweek. With just a minimal amount of organization, we can easily cut that hour down to a less embarrassing number – maybe just a half hour a day, for starters.
Simply by getting organized, we manage to save somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-3 hours per week.
How are we going to spend those hours? Often in our busy lives today, the kids can take a back seat, so a concerted effort to spend more quality time can be much appreciated by the little ones.
Research from Toy maker Chad Valley suggests children tend to prefer playing games with their dads. Its survey said 27% of families think of dad as the playtime favorite, with mothers second at 24% and siblings third at 21%.
The extra time that we fathers can spend with the kids just might have a bigger impact than what you think.
Concordia University recently published their findings from a study involving paternal involvement with children. The study found that, “Fathers who actively engage in raising their children can help make their offspring smarter and better behaved.
The long-term study examined how fathers can positively influence the development of their kids through hands-on parenting. Compared with other children with absentee dads, kids whose fathers were active parents in early and middle childhood had fewer behavior problems and higher intellectual abilities as they grew older – even among socio-economically at-risk families.”
Further research published by Psychology Today drives home this point, noting that an active father’s presence positively impacts children’s problem-solving while decreasing emotional problems, such as sadness, social withdrawal and anxiety. The results indicated that children with more involved fathers experienced fewer behavioral problems, had a more positive mental attitude, and scored higher on reading achievement. Clearly, it is beneficial for fathers to be actively involved with kids.
By no means am I insinuating that a single mother cannot raise a super kid; there are several examples of this being the case. I am, however, driven by logic, facts, and research – a bit of a self-proclaimed stats nerd. If we can do things to give our children a better chance to be successful, to be happy, and to be better behaved, let’s do as many of those things as possible.
The next major benefit to becoming organized is the potential for better health for yourself. Home organization is one of the most universal stress triggers, according to a Huffington Post online survey. “84% of recently stressed Americans (81% of men) say they worry that their home isn’t clean or organized enough, and within that group, 55% called it out as a source of recent stress.” Research has also shown that clutter raises levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
More: Read Why Entrepreneurs Should Meditate (information on benefits of guided meditation for entrepreneurs)
Stress is quickly becoming an epidemic, as the CDC and the American Institute of Stress agree that somewhere in the neighborhood of 75-90% of all disease is now stress-related. Stress worsens or increases the risk of conditions like obesity, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, depression, gastrointestinal problems, asthma and more. Chronic stress is now linked to the 6 leading causes of death, and as many as 110 million deaths each year can be attributed to stress being a factor.
The time to become organized is now. It will empower you to be more successful, achieve better health, and move toward work life balance . It also may encourage your children to be more successful too!
For your health and your future, as well as for the well-being of your children, take some steps toward being in control. Get organized – less stress for you and more time for them.
Susan Sly: Susan Sly is a work life balance expert, productivity specialist, best-selling author, speaker, trainer and entrepreneur. She has appeared on CNN, CNBC, Fox, Lifetime Television, The CBN, The Morning Show in Australia and been quoted in Forbes Magazine Online. Susan is the author of 7 books. Her book project with NY Times Best Selling Author, Jack Canfield, made six Amazon Best Selling lists. Susan is the mother of five children and resides with her husband in Scottsdale, Arizona. Susan truly believes we can have it all.
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