A Brand NEW Approach to Cleaning

Good Morning Everyone! (By the way, I'm totally faking this *CHEERY* attitude, because this chilly weather makes me want to go crawl right back in the bed... just to let you know.)  Now that we have that out in the open, I'll continue.

This post is about my path to a new MUCH more organized life.  Thinking about having an "Organized Life" really reminds me about how we think about our senses. While we often remember to give Sight and Smell a slot in our senses category area, a good majority of people forget that people actually have and use FIVE senses: Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch, Smell.

Similarly, when the term "organized" comes into play, what is the first thing you think of? Do you only think of how un-clean and "dis-organized" your house is right now? What I'm learning is that I can "pick up" the clutter in my home all I want, but I also have to remember that there is Mental Clutter, Financial Clutter, Guilty Clutter, Mourning Clutter, Sentimental Clutter,  Sad Clutter, Potentially Useful Clutter, Memory Clutter, "I Might Need It One Day" Clutter, Relationship Clutter, Time Clutter... and the list goes on and on and on. I'm just a clutterbug I guess!

Have you ever really thought deep down about what kind clutter you may be carrying around? I know I hadn't until recently.  I found myself beginning to feel overwhelmed, but I couldn't quite put my finger on the cause of this sudden stress.  Sound familiar?  For more information on types of clutter and how to take control of your clutter, click on the links below. (Don't forget to come back to the good stuff!)

{FYI: I'm about to tell you why these approaches do NOT work for me, but they may work for you.}

6 Types of Clutter
Oprah's Clutter Control Remedies
How Clutter Control Affects You

I have never really thought of myself as an organized person. In the past, I was never stressed out enough to feel the need seek out a cause to blame it on. That sure has changed! In the past 6 months, I've struggled with so many new changes in my life, and I've looked near and far for the main cause of the changes. The only answer I can come up with is that my changes were just in God's plan for me. That's fine with me, because I would rather be a part of God's plan and not understand why he dealt me these cards than be in a rough situation that I was responsible for on my own. I think that's why the clutter in my life is so frustrating: I did it to myself.

BACK to the point: (See, the same thing happens when I try to clean: I get DISTRACTED!)

If you open any "Lady" magazine, you can almost bet that somewhere inside there will be at least one article about household organization. I'm waiting for the day when all of the "Women's" magazines realize that they just rotate advice around from one article to the next... and it doesn't work half of the time.

Common advice doesn't always work for everyone, and it amazes me that magazine editors still haven't created a few more reasonable or unique approaches to housework. Below, I have listed a few "Common Clutter-Clearing Tips" that I see ALL the time. So, underneath each useless tip is a little tidbit of what I think about it and why it doesn't work for me.

The Common Advice 

• Walk into a room and pick up everything you see that doesn't belong there.

                            - I don't like this tip, because I feel like the writer is trying to make me feel like an idiot. Obviously, IF I could go into a room and pick up everything out of place and it was really that easy, there's a pretty good chance that I wouldn't need to read the article in the first place. I would have already picked everything up and put it away. Strike One... NEXT.

• Everything in your house needs to have a "place" where it belongs.

                             -  REALLY? Everything needs to have a place? Uh yea, obviously. And if I KNEW how to make a place for everything, again, I wouldn't be reading the article. I want to know HOW to find a place for everything. A "REASONABLE" how-to... Not one of those, "Save 20 cereal boxes and cover them with wall paper and have your husband use his circular saw to cut eleven of the thirteen 2x4's you had to buy from 'Herald's Home Place' specifically for this project" and hotglue them together and so forth.  That is NOT the norm...

                             - First of all, I said "Herald's Home Place," because there is a 50/50 chance that you will have never heard of the hardware store recommended in the magazine, the one with "the lowest price around." Around what? Sometimes I think writers google all over to find the store with the cheapest lumber prices, even if the only one in the entire United States is in Idaho. Second of all, I can almost promise you that IF you indeed routinely volunteer your husband and his circular saw for every cereal box DIY craft that you run just happen to across, there's a good chance you will need to read to the "Why Does My Husband Avoid ME" printed a few pages over. Long point short: Give us some eco-friendly, easy, CHEAP ways to organize. Strike Two... NEXT.

• Only save the "Really Special Artwork" that your child has made, and take digital pictures of the rest. You can print the pictures and look at them forever without the clutter of all of the coloring pages.

                            -  Ok, let me be clear for those who do not know me personally: I am not a mother to a biological child.  I do, however, have two creative little stepchildren who constantly draw and design oodles of pictures and items for their Daddy and me. I even have a box in the top of our closet with special little keepsakes they have created. While they are only at our house every other weekend, they still draw like 10 pictures at a time... each. I wish I knew how many "books" with silly little stories they have created and stapled together for us, but I lost count a while ago. And I've kept every single one.

                            - My point is: I don't want to take a picture of their artwork. And it's probably not for the reason that you may think. I don't want to take a picture and toss out the art work, because I just don't agree with the reasoning. You're swapping out an original for a duplicate. Printed pictures are also going to take up space, right? So, you might say, "I'll burn the pictures of their artwork on a c.d. to save space."  Really? You're going to take the time to round up the artwork, take an individual photo of each page (usually double sided as well), so around two pictures of EACH page, and upload or scan them into your computer, name each picture describing what it is, who drew it, and what year it was made. Then, you're going to either upload the files to Rite Aid and drive there to pick up your child's artwork pictures? Or if you opt for the Image C.D. route, are you going to put the images in a folder and burn a million C.D.s and then label each C.D. and create a way to organize them?

                          -Either way, you're going to be in a bad mood, because you just threw our your kid's precious artwork! Just take twenty minutes and stack each paper individually, neatly, with one on top of the other and put it in a clear $4 bin from Wal-Mart and slide it under the bed or put it up in the top of the closet. Do you really think you're going to have that day where you say, "You know what? I don't have anything to do today. I think I'm going to go find the disc with Tommy's artwork from 2nd grade and look at all of those pretty scribbles on the computer this afternoon?" Please just stop kidding yourself.

                        -In reality, you are going to want to pull out that old dusty box of "Scribbles" after your "baby boy" moves off to college and cry as you have your midlife crisis, wishing that he was five years old again. You actually DESERVE to keep the originals as proof that you actually kept another tiny teacup human alive AND they were somewhat creative. SCORE! (ha... that makes me crack up to hear someone say that, and I've been looking for a place to throw that in!)

Back to the point: You'll be in even more distress if you regret throwing the originals away. Most of our world is digital and made up of replicas, so I think there's something special about original items to bring you back in time. So if someome tells you to take a picture of your kids artwork and "bid it farewell," then I suggest that you tell them to go take a picture of their grandmother's 100 year old china cabinet and sell it for $10 at a yard sale... Strike three... THE MAGAZINE ADVICE COLUMNS LOSE.

                       -(I HAVE to add this last tidbit just because it annoys me to read it over and over... so here's one more piece of useless advice.)

• Ask yourself, "Do I REALLY need this?" If the answer is "No," then toss it out.

                       - What kind of dilusional world do these overpaid organizers live in? Don't they think that IF indeed you are reading an article on how to get organized, then you have probably already asked yourself IF you need a specific item like a million times already, and the answer is, "Yes. Yes I do need to keep the busted float from the beach trip in 1999, because it CAN be fixed. And what if there's a time in life where we don't have the money to buy another $2 float? When everyone else needs a float and they can't afford to buy one, I won't have to worry about anything, because I kept AND fixed mine!"

                       - Now we're just going to ignore the fact that IF you did happen to keep a ripped $2 float for 12 years, waiting to need to fix it during a economical depression, then you are probably not JUST a "tad bit unorganized." You're probably well on your way to arriving at your next "Hoarders Anonymous" meeting. The main point I'm trying to make is, people who keep pure crap and wierd junk are horrible at organizing, but they have a freakishly awesome ability to rationalize anything. They will indeed ask theirselves IF they actually need something, and the ALWAYS "yes". I ask myself all the time if I REALLY need something, and I'm so distracted and unorganized that sometimes I even forget to answer! :)

The REAL Bottom Line:  Don't these Martha Stewart clones think that if everyone could/would "spend twenty minutes a day" putting away items that we wouldn't have an issue with clutter?

BACK TO MY OWN MESSY HOUSE:

I think I may have FINALLY found the solution to my clutter... FLYLADY!!!

You have GOT to check out this site! FLYLADY takes a whole new approach to cleaning, and I believe she specifically works well for people with "Attention Issues," much like myself. She teaches you how to use new approaches to my three main demons: PROCRASTINATION, GETTING SIDETRACKED and BOREDOM! I LOVE this site!

One of the HUGE things I find motivating about this new sight is that the FLYLADY herself, Marla Cilley, is not one of those "Organizing Fanatics" that was practically born obsessively color coordinating and organizing her crayons when she was like 3. She didn't spend her childhood making her parents beam with pride at how clean she kept her room. No, Ms. Cilley was once a dysfunctional personal herself, so she really knows what she's talking about. Regular methods didn't work for her, either. LOVE IT!

I have found that I work much better if I set my own goals rather than follow another person's schedule. All of our lives are going in different directions, right? All I know is, when I found this site, I just about peed in my pants with excitement, because I finally found someone who just seemed to "get" me and my organizational issues. I now have a new title to add to my chaos: I am a... "FLY Baby."

Here are a few links to get you on the right track!

Getting Started with FLYLADY
Start with BABYSTEPS
What to Expect from FLYLADY

So, if you want to try to make an attempt at become more organized and efficient and the regular methods just aren't helping you become successful, I recommend that you check out FLYLADY.  I really don't see how it could hurt!

Here are a few of the motivational pictures and quotes that I use to "BOOST" my cleaning genes...

Now, in the words of the FLYLADY herself.... "Go Shine Your Sink!"