I have always loved organizing. As a little girl, I remember taking all the toys out from the closet in the hall right next to my bedroom and rearranging them and putting them back, excited to rediscover things that I hadn't seen in months. The process is fun for me and I often tackle little projects when I have a spare moment.
The problem is that I'm not great at upkeep. So, I'll have a big organization day and go crazy and wear myself out and in a week (Ok, let's be honest, in a day) it all falls apart again, arg! I really would love to live in a cleaner, simpler home so that I don't feel like I spend so much time cleaning. Which is so ironic because it never really seems clean!
So, I'm trying to begin the battle, and I'm seeing that the biggest culprit in this is some deep set habits that I'm trying to mend.
Included in this organization quest is a regular cleaning schedule (handing some jobs over to the boys), templates for meals and shopping, and unclogging trouble spot.
my inspiration is coming from several places. I've been reading
managers of their homes by Teri Maxwell, the new
messies manual by sandra felton, and from good conversations with those who are a little farther down the organizational path. I found two forms this week that I LOVE,
anne voskamp's daily printout that has great little categories for important things. And it's got pretty little graphics and who doesn't love a little pretty in their mundane? And I saw this other
printout today from martha stewart. It's not necessarily something that I would look at every day, but I love the simplicity and truth of doing these things. I'm good at a couple, but if I did all 6 each day, it would make a big difference. As Felton says, "messies" just get psyched out by certain jobs, lots of mental blocks everywhere, and they assume that certain things take a lot of time. This is so me! How long does it take to make your bed in the morning when i wake up? But I'm just not in the habit. She had another great little tip, if something takes less than 30 seconds, do it right then and don't even put it on the to do list. It's the little things.
One big revelation for me this week is that I feel like i'm cleaning all day, but most of what I'm doing is laundry, cooking, dishes, and picking up toys. And that "cleaning", like mopping and toilets just isn't getting done very often until it's so bad that it's embarassing. But Sandra Felton made a great point that we are so busy with the 80% that keeps us so busy, but the things that make a difference are the 20% that is easy to neglect. This was so key for me. There are things that are my default, the biggest one being dishes, second is probably laundry. They just happen around here, they're not always done, but they are always in process. But there are other things that I just don't get around to.
I went to starbucks this week, ah who doesn't think better there. And wrote down the rooms in my house and all the potential cleaning jobs for each. Today I wrote a d, w, or m next to each if the chore is daily, weekly, or monthly.
Monday: Bathroom/laundry
Tuesday: Living Room
Wednesday: Our Bedroom/laundry
Thursday: Kitchen
Friday: Boys Bedroom/Laudry
Saturday: alternate between Schoolroom and Laundry room
This morning i cleaned the laundry room, which i usually don't ever think about. I wiped down the shelves that double as my pantry which was also a good chance for me to review what food I have and need to use. I threw away a couple things that I don't use very much. I had the boys wipe down the tops of the dryer and washer, and I vacuumed and mopped the floor. Now this didn't do a lot for the overall appearance of my house. But for today, other than meals and dishes I am done. And I love that feeling. I don't have to be cleaning all day because I know that my schedule will walk me through all the important things that need to be done in a week so nothing will be embarassingly behind. And with the list I'll easily be able to choose a few things for the boys to do alongside me.
This ties into what I've been reading from Managers, she encourages a family to form a detailed schedule in 30 minute increments for mom and each kid. It's very type A and I might need to adopt a more relaxed carrying out of her thoughts to make it sustainable to me. But I love her main point. What are your priorities and why are we always saying that we just can't get around to writing, sewing, exercising? Because it's not part of the schedule. And big projects can really be accomplished if you're just chipping away at it 30 minutes each day.
I love her ideas of scheduling playtime one on one with your different children and even scheduling the baby for playtimes and activites. Really in everything I just wrote, I'm trying to eliminate decisions during the day. It might seem rote to have everything scheduled out and I would have absolutely balked at this mentality before I was married and had kids. But at this stage in my game, I'm going for survival and food on the table and any decision that has already been made for me is a big plus.
Especially in the realm of cooking. I have a rotation of lunches that I pack for my husband and a rotation of breakfast and lunch for the boys and I. It is so helpful to have these things pre-decided.
One last thought. I've always liked to think that I'm an organized person and it's been hard on my ego to realize how scattered I am and how much time I waste and how little I get done. But then I thought, I'm better than I used to be and I do see improvement if I look back even a couple years and I've only been a mom of 3 for a little under 2 years. And I'm still not sleeping through the night on a regular basis, haha! It's so rare for me to have positive thoughts about myself, so I embrace this. I'm in process and that's ok.
Gorgeous schedules will be posted after I work all the kinks out!
