Decorating Quiz
A Time for Discovery
It is best if everyone in the household participates. It will bring you closer together, make changes easier and have fun in the process. One person can do this with success.
Step One
Gather your family together for dinner one night and ask them to participate in this one week only fact finding mission. Tell them that their participation is important to you and that you want their help. Start on a Sunday or Monday evening. This time is usually best because it is the least busy time of the week for most people. Have everyone look at their calendars and mark a week when this can begin because everyone must be in town and available for this project to be successful. Then have them mark their calendars a week later from when the project starts so they are available for dinner and discussion of results afterwards. This is a must!
Cooperation is the key for this exercise to be a success. When you all agree, be prepared to start on the date agreed. This is another key for success.
Step Two
Post an 8 1/2×11 inch piece of paper with a pencil tied on a string in each room of the house. Check daily to make sure there is always a pencil available and the sheet has not been moved somewhere else.
Step Three
Ask them to be like investigators. If it involves something they may benefit from they will be more interested to participate. You want them to write down anything in each room that they see needs to be purchased, changed, repaired, or improved upon. They must write it down and put their initials behind it. Initials reinforce that their comments are important and they will want to be first with the idea so participation may get fierce. If someone agrees with another person’s comment they can just put their initials next to that person’s initials. Remember this must be done in each room for an entire week. A few days doesn’t get you the results you want. Awareness happen over a period of time not then just a few days or hours.
Step Four
At the end of the 7 days the person in charge of the sheets will tally up the results and mark the three most important comments made from each room. The results will be announced after dinner when everyone is satisfied and relaxed. Before announcing the results from each room you will want to discuss what each person had written. It may lead to some lively conversation and you may get more important information then what was just on the sheets. Once you discussed a room you must vote on the three most important changes or announce the results of your tally if the results are obvious. Mark them one, two and three in order of importance. The number 1 is the most important and so on and put that number in front of the comment.
Step Five
Now that each room has been discussed and voted on they will now want to see results. Tell them you will post the results for everyone to see within the week. Next the people who have the say in the budgeting for these changes need to get together and decide what money they are willing to allocate for these changes. They must make a new list of all three choices from each room. You then mark what time period they will fall into i.e. changes to be made within one month, changes in 3 months, changes in 6 months, changes by one a year. This will give you a goal. Since it is written in black and white and you have gotten the full cooperation of your family you will have the support you need to get things accomplished.
Step Six
Type up this new list and post it on the refrigerator or your family bulletin board. At you next family dinner together discuss how everyone feels about the plan. The more input you get the more cooperation you will get. You may have to make some adjustments but, remember you are the final decision maker.
An important note
It is important that you would only begin this exercise if there is a budget of some kind to accomplish at least 5 of these tasks. Otherwise your family will feel you have wasted their valuable time, feel let down and may not be support you on other projects in the future.
HAVE FUN!!!! NOW GET STARTED