My Organizing Plan
by Mama B
As I have said many times before, I am the least (and probably most frustrated at it)organized person on planet earth. I have shared my thoughts on this before, if you follow our blog, you may remember. I have come to realize that after saying "I''m sorry", my second most repeated sentence is, "When I get organized...". I have been giving this some thought on not only how to become more organized, but why I am not successful at it. I have come to the conclusion that it's because I am overwhelmed by my chaos. I am not just unorganized in the clutter of my home, but in other (alright - all) areas of my life. I must be a burden on those dear and near to my heart. I have seen the eye rolls, and the shaking of heads, heard the "here we go again" tone in voices, and I must say that it hurts. I have come to the conclusion that only I can fix this. So, I did some research on organizing my life and found myself overwhelmed by all the information out there. I have a decent sized pinterest board on this very subject - the organizing, not the overwhelmed part, but I do have a pin or two on that as well :). As I thought about all the attempts I have made in this area, I found that I was making myself overwhelmed because I was trying to do everything all at once and in a too short period of time. I was rushing to see results and all I was seeing was the mess that has to be made on the path to being organized. Several years ago, when our kids were little, My Man was hospitalized for a short period of time. It was a scary and frustrating time as drs tried to stabilize his medications. Someone whom I thought was a good friend phoned me one night and told me she knew why My Man had ended up in the hospital - it was because he had bought me this beautiful house and I couldn't keep it clean and organized. I have hardly ever invited anyone to my home since. The struggle has been real, and it doesn't help when those closest never see what you have done, only what you haven't - so why bother, right? I have learned a couple of things over the years; 1) I am a hoarder of sorts, and 2) I learned that the easiest way to clean a room is to start in one corner and work your way around the room, a few feet at a time. In my current research, I have found that I need to start in one corner of my life and work my way around all the areas that make up said life. I figure that a clean and tidy home is vital to the foundation of my organized life. So that's where I am starting. Again, as I was reading how others have organized this area in their own homes, I became a tad confused as to why I would need a binder just for housekeeping lists, but, if it works for them, that's great! For me, it would add to my state of disarray, and I would loose that binder in all my mess and then the chaos that would result in finding it would be too much and I would shut down. So, I have invested in a planner. It's got just what I need in it, everything in one place and I can paperclip all the lists to the inside cover. I read a delightful post in a blog( I will share it on the twohens and their chicks pinterest board) about housekeeping in the 50's. I am going to try something like it. I am going to take 3 hours of everyday to invest in housework. That being said, I don't need three hours to tidy my home as there are only 4 of us that live here, and our son, Damian, takes care of all of his own needs, as well as those of his three year old son, Noah. I don't clean their rooms, I don't do their laundry, etc. So how am I going to accomplish organization in this corner of my life? Here is my plan. Please keep in mind that it is going to take me longer to get it all done this first week because of years of hit and miss cleaning. I am taking things one step at a time. I have worked out a daily schedule for the whole house, and as time goes by, it shouldn't take me more than 30 minutes to accomplish that list! Then I worked out a weekly schedule, a monthly schedule, and a 2 times a year schedule. Mondays I work in our bedroom. This is our dumping ground for all homeless things. No more!!! So, every Monday, our bedroom gets not only the daily tidy up, but the weekly things, like changing the bedding, emptying the garbage, etc. For the monthly things, I divided those into 4 and add one to each week in the month. Then I will repeat every month. Anything that needs to be done 2 times a year in our room, gets added to a Monday schedule. Does that make sense? The rest of the week, our bedroom will get just the general, daily tidy up until the following Monday. The rest of the house has been divided up as follows: Tuesdays: Bathrooms, Laundry room and entry hallway Wednesdays: Living Room Thursdays: Kitchen and Pantry Fridays: Studio Saturdays: Hallway, Stairway and outside doorways As I figure out what works and what doesn't, I will keep you posted. This is only the beginning! I feel good about my plan and I feel that it is doable for me. When I have this corner figured out, I feel confident that the next corner I tackle will work out just as well. Thanks for listening! |