The Clutter Busters
Several of my lj friends have commented favourably on the tidiness of my home as revealed in recent photographs I shared. Some have seemed to be a bit intimidated, for the which I am very sorry.
Look, I am not the world's tidiest person. I am not even in the top ten percentile as anyone who's been with me in RL would know (/em looks significantly at damedini and history_gurl). But over the last few years I've picked up some helpful habits from a few websites that I'll happily share. These five principles will not make your home perfect, but they can help you fight clutter, both physical and mental.
1. "Go shine your sink." -- From Flylady.net
At the end of the day, clean your sink but good. Kind of like the principle that you shouldn't go to bed mad at your partner, going to bed with a messy sink means waking up to a messy sink and that's depressing, stressing and not easily dealt with first thing in the morning. Bonus? If you live with others, keeping the kitchen sink clean at the end of the day encourages them to treat the kitchen a little bit better. In this case, it's also good to share the resolution with your housemates, so that they understand that a tidy kitchen sink is not an invitation for them to dump their stuff on you.
Useful Flylady Links:
Baby Steps: Starting the FlyLady System
FlyLady Commandments (I think of them as guidelines)
Tips for Not Getting Sidetracked
2. "Get everything out of your head." -- From Getting Things Done.
Seriously. I'm not telling you to stop storing all the important things you've learned in your life, but to stop carrying around all those little reminders, deadlines and "I should do" project thoughts. Find a central place for everything -- appointments should all be kept on one calendar (I've used the More Time for Moms calendar in the past which is great, but the last two years we've moved to the Busy Family Calendar which has five columns for each day in the month, running down a whole two page spread so that we can track joint and individual appointments). The same goes for projects -- set up a good filing and tracking system that allows you to commit those great ideas to paper (or electronic format) rather than to the uncertain system of your mind. And, yes, this works well for fan projects, as well! The added bonus is that you can also say goodbye to the inefficient system of keeping ten million different piles of notes to remind yourself about the thing that you were thinking about that you forgot but you would have remembered had you done this right.
The Official "Getting Things Done" site
There's even a book!
43 Folders -- All about personal productivity
3. "Others will only live up to your expectations if you express them." -- From me!
My kids used to be the champion messmakers of Canada. I have some old video tapes that show my house on an average morning with toys covering the floor from one end of my living room to the other and everywhere else. Sure, it all was supposed to go away in their rooms or the capacious cupboard under the TV but why bother? Mom would scoop up the worst of it at some point! Since then, I've learned that setting very clear rules or giving directions without a lot of steps has helped cut down the clutter. For instance, with the new coffee table, the rule is that it gets cleared at dinner time and before bedtime every day. All that can stay on top are the four coasters. There's cubby space underneath for art stuff, homework help supplies, a few books and some D&D gear. Things go away every day. Much less clutter now that I help them pick out what goes wear and remind them of the rules. Passive-aggressive attitudes of "you should know this without being told" never work. And sometimes you might have to remind and remind and remind with a helping of assist and remind, but it eventually pays off.
4. "Start slow, small and steady." -- From Cynthia Townley Ewer, OrganizedHome.com
So many people tend to think that they should get it all done now. Right now! "My living room's a mess and I'm not going to bed until it's clean!" Impossible, amorphous goals make for impossibly frustrating failures. Even fifteen minutes a day will help a lot. Deal with one cubby or drawer at your desk, one stack of papers, one pile of clothes. And that means really deal with it -- don't just shuffle it around. Decide what goes and what stays. If it stays? It should have a logical place, whether it's the kitchen junk drawer, your filing cabinet or your out-of-season clothing storage.
Organizing Your Home
Cheap and Effective Cleaning Tips
5. "Only keep what you love. And if you love it, keep it well." -- From Me, Again!
My mother, god bless her, loved knick knacks and needlearts. She filled up first one home and another with all her stuff. Now, at least it was all well-displayed and organized. But I? I have a little home. A tiny home. A wee home. And if I were to give into an interest in collecting Boyd's Bears or whatever, I would soon have no home at all. Fortunately, I do not much like things knick-knackish, but even so, my books, alone, threaten to put me out of house and home. However, a few years back I finally began ditching some stuff that was stacked, stuffed or piled up hither and yon under the rule that I will only keep the things I love (or need -- no one really loves mops, do they?). Clothes from the 80s? Gone. Books I don't want to read or refer to again? Gone. Geegaws that someone gave me that I don't like? Gone. (You can garage sale stuff, donate to Goodwill or a local charity, use Freecycle to give it away, Craigslist or eBay to sell it.) I see several of my U.S. friends using paperbackswap to good effect. Again, if you don't love it or need it, what is it doing taking up space in your life?
Finally, I know that many of my friends find some of these websites patronizing, grating or annoying. (I especially hear that about Flylady.) That's fine. You know what? I find that annoying, too. But along the line of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, you have to get past it. Mine these sites for the bits of gold they provide. Ignore the rest.
Look, I am not the world's tidiest person. I am not even in the top ten percentile as anyone who's been with me in RL would know (/em looks significantly at damedini and history_gurl). But over the last few years I've picked up some helpful habits from a few websites that I'll happily share. These five principles will not make your home perfect, but they can help you fight clutter, both physical and mental.
1. "Go shine your sink." -- From Flylady.net
At the end of the day, clean your sink but good. Kind of like the principle that you shouldn't go to bed mad at your partner, going to bed with a messy sink means waking up to a messy sink and that's depressing, stressing and not easily dealt with first thing in the morning. Bonus? If you live with others, keeping the kitchen sink clean at the end of the day encourages them to treat the kitchen a little bit better. In this case, it's also good to share the resolution with your housemates, so that they understand that a tidy kitchen sink is not an invitation for them to dump their stuff on you.
Useful Flylady Links:
Baby Steps: Starting the FlyLady System
FlyLady Commandments (I think of them as guidelines)
Tips for Not Getting Sidetracked
2. "Get everything out of your head." -- From Getting Things Done.
Seriously. I'm not telling you to stop storing all the important things you've learned in your life, but to stop carrying around all those little reminders, deadlines and "I should do" project thoughts. Find a central place for everything -- appointments should all be kept on one calendar (I've used the More Time for Moms calendar in the past which is great, but the last two years we've moved to the Busy Family Calendar which has five columns for each day in the month, running down a whole two page spread so that we can track joint and individual appointments). The same goes for projects -- set up a good filing and tracking system that allows you to commit those great ideas to paper (or electronic format) rather than to the uncertain system of your mind. And, yes, this works well for fan projects, as well! The added bonus is that you can also say goodbye to the inefficient system of keeping ten million different piles of notes to remind yourself about the thing that you were thinking about that you forgot but you would have remembered had you done this right.
The Official "Getting Things Done" site
There's even a book!
43 Folders -- All about personal productivity
3. "Others will only live up to your expectations if you express them." -- From me!
My kids used to be the champion messmakers of Canada. I have some old video tapes that show my house on an average morning with toys covering the floor from one end of my living room to the other and everywhere else. Sure, it all was supposed to go away in their rooms or the capacious cupboard under the TV but why bother? Mom would scoop up the worst of it at some point! Since then, I've learned that setting very clear rules or giving directions without a lot of steps has helped cut down the clutter. For instance, with the new coffee table, the rule is that it gets cleared at dinner time and before bedtime every day. All that can stay on top are the four coasters. There's cubby space underneath for art stuff, homework help supplies, a few books and some D&D gear. Things go away every day. Much less clutter now that I help them pick out what goes wear and remind them of the rules. Passive-aggressive attitudes of "you should know this without being told" never work. And sometimes you might have to remind and remind and remind with a helping of assist and remind, but it eventually pays off.
4. "Start slow, small and steady." -- From Cynthia Townley Ewer, OrganizedHome.com
So many people tend to think that they should get it all done now. Right now! "My living room's a mess and I'm not going to bed until it's clean!" Impossible, amorphous goals make for impossibly frustrating failures. Even fifteen minutes a day will help a lot. Deal with one cubby or drawer at your desk, one stack of papers, one pile of clothes. And that means really deal with it -- don't just shuffle it around. Decide what goes and what stays. If it stays? It should have a logical place, whether it's the kitchen junk drawer, your filing cabinet or your out-of-season clothing storage.
Organizing Your Home
Cheap and Effective Cleaning Tips
5. "Only keep what you love. And if you love it, keep it well." -- From Me, Again!
My mother, god bless her, loved knick knacks and needlearts. She filled up first one home and another with all her stuff. Now, at least it was all well-displayed and organized. But I? I have a little home. A tiny home. A wee home. And if I were to give into an interest in collecting Boyd's Bears or whatever, I would soon have no home at all. Fortunately, I do not much like things knick-knackish, but even so, my books, alone, threaten to put me out of house and home. However, a few years back I finally began ditching some stuff that was stacked, stuffed or piled up hither and yon under the rule that I will only keep the things I love (or need -- no one really loves mops, do they?). Clothes from the 80s? Gone. Books I don't want to read or refer to again? Gone. Geegaws that someone gave me that I don't like? Gone. (You can garage sale stuff, donate to Goodwill or a local charity, use Freecycle to give it away, Craigslist or eBay to sell it.) I see several of my U.S. friends using paperbackswap to good effect. Again, if you don't love it or need it, what is it doing taking up space in your life?
Finally, I know that many of my friends find some of these websites patronizing, grating or annoying. (I especially hear that about Flylady.) That's fine. You know what? I find that annoying, too. But along the line of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, you have to get past it. Mine these sites for the bits of gold they provide. Ignore the rest.