Monthly Archives: February 2014

Sparkle

300 Daily Words

This year I have challenged myself to write at least 300 words in a blog post every weekday.  Now I am not a natural writer. I love to talk and have done podcasts but for blogs, you have to have things written for your posts to be able to “talk” to google search.

One of the greatest obstacles I’ve had to overcome is a sense of perfection. Or as some call it – the paralysis of analysis.  Meaning if I don’t have something so earth shattering to say why say anything at all?

Upon further reflection I see this also in my approach to cleaning and clutter. Why do I walk past the odd scrap of paper without picking it up?  Why don’t I hand wash the odd plate or glass instead of waiting until I have a full load for the dishwasher?

Such small things wouldn’t matter except as we know, many small things a disaster makes. Suddenly, so it seems, there are a dozen or more small scraps of paper and two loads of dishes for the wash.  How can this happen and happen so often?

Yes, messies often get bored with routine and with everyday ho hum repetitive chores. But like it or not, we have to have a plan and somewhere, somehow keep a sense of perspective.

Recently I’ve been reading about adults with ADD/ADHD and while I’m not going to go so far as to say all of us have that condition, I find that doing a search on ADD and time management reveals a lot of similarities. In fact I think that topic deserves it’s own post – or even series of them!

So what daily task do you need to focus on today?  Challenge yourself to do small but meaningful actions that will either prevent or deal with a organizational mess and let someone know who can cheer you on.

And with that I have my 300 Daily Words! 🙂

Home, Organization

After You are Sick

One of the common challenges with Messie Families is that they don’t have clear cut habits. So it’s normal to have a house of chaos after you are sick.

 Being ill is no fun. If you are like me you have to deal with guilty feelings of not getting things done even when you know you have a perfectly good excuse.

When you feel well enough to get back into the swing of things what are some suggestions? What do you do?  If it is overwhelming first fix yourself a cup of your favorite hot beverage and make a list.

What is needed to keep the house running? Have you paid bills?

What are critical items that need attention: Overflowing trash? Spills or broken items? Errands?

 Next what is keeping any workflow from progressing. Are you out of soap? Items dumped where they don’t belong?

What items/tasks can you reasonably expect other family members to do?

Things not to do are multitask projects that you might not finish. OK let me give you an example. Our family likes to soak the silverware before washing. Usually they pick an item needed for cooking such as the rice cooker bowl (yeah I know) or a special mixing bowl and then they go off and forget about the soaking silverware until someone else needs the space or the bowl it is soaking in.

Another danger is making piles of laundry when you know you can only get one or two done. If you can sort it discreetly then fine but often my house ends up with 8 piles of laundry either waiting to be washed or folded taking up all the sitting space in the living room.

So after you are sick it’s not only critical to take things slow and easy – but its also a good time to reflect on your organization and cleaning routines and see what can be tweaked.