I learned a few important tips last week helping my daughter Tara reorganize some of the rooms in her home.

Photo/TaraRoss

I plan to implement some of the following insights that I discovered while helping Tara with a few household projects.

I never imagined that this activity would help me solve some of the problems in my life with prioritizing, resolving conflicts, planning, and improving relationships. I think you might find them helpful, too.

Examine your priorities. “What do you need to do?”

I asked Tara this question as we faced the overwhelming needs of her household with four small children at home. After brainstorming about several issues, Tara focused on one specific need—getting her boys’ bedrooms in order before they returned to school from summer vacation.

Why did Tara choose this bedroom makeover as a priority? It proved to be the most urgent issue in their home at the time. And the timing worked out, since I happened to be visiting with her while her husband was out of town. Plus, school started the next week, and her boys were home to arrange their personal items and to help us with some of the heavy stuff.

Resolve your internal and external conflicts. Tara needed to separate two of her sons who shared a room since they often argue over their territory. The older brother had also voiced his desire for his own space, and the other two younger boys wanted to share a room. And Tara decided that a change would be healthy for everyone in her household.

So, we sat down with a cup of coffee, ushered the kiddos out of the room, and devised a plan of attack.

Develop a strategy. I asked Tara, “What do we need to do to help meet your needs right now? Since I had planned to visit Tara and the kids for a few days, we knew we only had a short time to work together on this project. So, we devised a strategy to begin the moving process.

• First, we found some temporary space for the things that we moved out of youngest son’s bedroom that cleared some space for his older brother to move into that room.
• Then, we moved the older brother out of the bedroom he shared, into the room that we had prepared for him.
• Next, we moved the youngest child’s things that were staged in another area of the house into the room he and his older brother wanted to share.

Tara captured a photo (at the top of this post) of her two boys who now shared a room. There you will see some of the first fruits of our labor—the older brother reading a book to his little brother at bedtime.

When Tara posted this photo of her boys on Facebook, she expressed her gratitude for this blessing—the direct result of a wise mom’s discernment of the needs of her children to rearrange and exchange their bedrooms.

Recruit a friend for help. I know that Tara appreciated my help moving furniture, even though I lacked the strength and endurance of my youth. But we both were grateful that we had two strong boys who helped us. In the end, Tara expressed her gratitude for my moral support and pep talks. More than once, I said, “We can do this thing!”

“Two are better than one,
 because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down,
 one can help the other up.
 But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up”(Eccl. 4:9-10 NIV).

[Next week, I hope to share how I applied a few of these insights to my own life. And I hope to hear from you, too.]

How have you resolved some of the overwhelming needs of your household? Leave your comments in the space below.