Another messy messy person checking in here. And I don’t know if the fact that I am sort of meant to be packing up for a house move is a good thing or a bad thing - probably sort of good, 'cos if I don’t LET the new place get messy, well, you never know, it might remain acceptable. But I tell you, I’m glad you cannot see the state of my kitchen - um, or living room , and you would not see the floor of the bedroom at all anyway. Eek, I don’t like contemplating how bad it is.
I agree with dahfisheroo. For planning, why don’t we, say, make a short list of things for people to do this week? Multiple choice? Every is probably bad at slightly different things.
For instance, for the rest of the week, pick two or three things to spend 10-15 minutes on a day.
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Making the bed.
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Picking up clutter.
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Sweep the kitchen.
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Empty the garbage.
Something like that. Or pick one, and do it every day.
I continued with my plan. I went to the gym and worked out. No. Wait. That’s the wrong plan in the wrong thread. Now where was I?
Oh yes. I’m home now. Seeing this thread reminded me of tidying. So… off I go to do something.
Yep, I think you’re right. We need a little bit of organization. Typical.
Sure, I’ll play, too.
My concern: I don’t eat enough fruit and my veg intake varies from meh to good.
My goal(s): have my place ready so that kitchen and bathroom can be renovated and, ultimately, the whole place be nice enough to entertain in.
My flaws: not eliminating old things when they’re ready to go (including the fruit and veg I buy but forget to plan for), not noticing time’s passing and things aren’t getting done, clinging to things I’ve not read yet
My big issue is that after a while I don’t really see things. Including my lists. After looking at a list several times, I glaze over and it just doesn’t register anymore. I have created umpty-dozen and two reminder systems of all sorts for myself; automated, paper, even erasable plastic. They all work for a little while and then pfft. Don’t know what I’m going to do that will work for an extended period of time but I’ve been fighting this my whole adult life. So if anybody has a brilliant idea that might work for the likes of me, by all means pass it along.
As for my current plans, tonight I’m working on menus for the next week (including a recipe to use up the buttermilk that’s edging towards ‘past due’. I don’t do dishes right after dinner (my stomach much prefers that I remain seated and digesting immediately after eating) but will do them later this evening - my newest success at developing a good habit. I’ll also bag up my recycle to take down and dump in our bins in the morning and figure out what I’ll wear tomorrow. But that leaves a ‘to-do’ list of a couple hundred items. Sigh.
Man, asking the group of the most resentfully disorganized people on the SDMB to come up with a plan is a pretty tall order! I do think it’s a great idea to have some specific goals for all of us, though. I personally resent greatly the idea of making the bed, but agree that it would make the whole room feel less… conducive to mess, I suppose. God. I don’t want to think about the bedroom.
Today I cleaned the living room, which means if you’re keeping track that I have three rooms cleanish at this time. Which is frankly amazing and I have the SDMB to thank for it. It’s really only “clean” because I did move some stuff to other rooms where I threw it on the floor, and there’s still a chairfull of Aaron’s crap and one of my “donation” pile and a box of “please attend to these papers”. Still, I vacuumed. In fact, I cleared space for, and are you ready for this? A mail sorting table. That’s a huge hot spot for me, even though I open most of it on the freaking porch, outside, over the recycling bin. I got a little tall table, put a little divided mail holder thing on it and a box on its lower shelf. The mail thing is for “keep and do this!” mail, and the box is for “shred it!”. Mail that doesn’t need to be shredded stays in the recycling thing outside. Great if I can keep it up, huh?
I’m real good at spending a lot of time and money on solutions like that and not actually using it, however. But I promise, when I get up this wine glass is going to the kitchen and in the dishwasher. I’m training Aaron on the dishwasher thing too - it’s foreign because the dishwasher is usually full of clean dishes!
ooh, ooh, oooh, I have an idea. I’m not sure how the MMP works, but it feels like someone is picked every week. How about like that? Each week someone picks two simple small specific tasks, either crappy hardly ever do task–Like scrub the kitchen garbage container, and one general, like make your beds? Has to be very specific, though, can’t just say “declutter.” And we all do it. Incorporating a new habit a week? The person then picks out next week poster? Ad infinitum?
Boy, don’t I sound fucking chirpy. Insert jaded, grumpy chick voice instead.
Don’t mean to rain on your parade but it seems most folks who glommed onto this were the ones who rejected Flylady for being too bossy and regimented.
May I suggest that each person post his own goals and then reply to her own posts to report on progress. Just a thought. Partly I’m thinking that a weekly goal like ‘clean the basement’ would be useless to those of us who are basementless so some of us would end up sitting out possibly even several weeks’ tasks. Plus we each have different issues. I’m not too bad on some things that others are and vicey versey.
Yeah, my problem is that I was too overwhelmed by reading others comments. I wanted to make my bed, I wanted to clean my fridge, no I wanted to vacuum, no, shit, I wanted to go through my in box, no wait, I could put away my laundry. Um, that was like an hour ago, and I am still on the 'Dope.
Now I am going to bed. I’ll make it tomorrow.
Exactly! We all have different problems, so why should there be a single solution? A given task could be psychologically horrible for person A, and a snap for person B.
Take that ‘make your bed’ thing. I make mine automatically the minute I get up. That’s not a boast, it’s just an ingrained habit based on my not liking the cats to get on my sheets, which they will, unless the bed is made… OTOH, I HATE to vacuum. Just the sound of the vacuum makes me want to yowl and hide in the closet the way the cats do.
I think this should work more like the weight loss threads. Everyone decides what they need to do – which diet, what and how much exercise – and just reports and we trade encouragement and helpful ideas as possible.
At most, well, maybe there could be ‘theme’ type suggestions. Like maybe on Monday everyone makes a stab at their kitchen, and Tuesday is closet day, and Wednesday is Tackle Paper day?
With it up to each person what they want to do that fits the theme. “Kitchen” work could be scrubbing and waxing the floor, or cleaning out a junk drawer, or coming up with a menu plan and shopping list for the week. A “Closet” day obviously could be decluttering but it could instead be for sewing on that button that fell off, or hanging up the clothes piled on your bedroom chair or taking some garments to the dry cleaner, or organizing for all your gift wrapping supplies. And so forth.
It might be fun to read how each of us wanted to went about the ‘theme’. While, of course, others should feel free to ignore ‘Closet Day’ and instead spend the time dusting all their table tops.
Experienced “clean person” checking in. Hope you don’t mind the intrusion…
There are two basic truisms to being “neat”, “orderly”, “clean”, etc. Not millions, not something defined in the perfect list or schedule, but just… two truisms:
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The more stuff you have, the more stuff you have to clean.
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Cleaning As You Go is always easier than Cleaning After You’re Done.
Let’s look at item 1. My wife and I live in a 1,400 sq. ft home in Knoxville, TN. We fit both cars in our garage, while our attics are 1/20th occupied - I can reach everything stored in our attic from the staircase. For casual, everyday work/lifewear I have about 10 shirts and 10 pairs of pants (and a few suits, upgraded every few years), she has about twice as much in clothing. We have just enough dishes to last us through just one day (a set of eight for 3 people at 3 meals). Our five year-old daughter is used to regular “purges” of toys, and now she is helping to decide which of her old toys goes to the “poor children”. The other day I decided that my office was too heavy in bookcases - so I got rid of about 80 books and two bookcases.
Reading this thread gives me the impression that many of you appear to be floundering about because of the sheer volume of stuff that must be attended to. So, in my humble opinion, if the amount of material goods is a problem in your life, the very first thing you should do, before you worry about drawing up schedules or making the bed every morning or polishing that sink or signing up to Internet groups (who just litter your inbox with “stuff”), is to
GET RID OF THE STUFF
How much? Pretty much all of it (“all of it” compared to the amount you do have). In a modern society, you really need no more than 2 weeks of essentials (clothes, food, pet supplies), plus seasonal (Christmas decorations), personal (film), and/or occasional items (suits). So grab all those clothes you are not wearing and take them to Goodwill or the consignment shop (for credit). All those books that you know, in your heart-of-hearts, you are not going to really re-read again (or read in the first place) - let some kid check them out of the local library. The albums you’re never going to listen to again, that junky Disney “collection” of glass figurines (sp) you bought one summer back in 1997 that’s sitting on some shelf*… all of it. Just take it. Get it out of your home.
This is really a weekend chore. You’ve seen the show Clean Sweep, right? You should do this purging of the stuff over a full weekend, going room by room.
Sayonara. Good riddance to bad rubbish. See ya. Don’t let the door hit ya in the ass as you leave, so long and thanks for all the tax deductions (if you give your stuff to charity, that is).
When you do this, when you start removing the detrious and accumulations of modern life you will find that the cleaning is, somehow, magically occuring. You will literally feel the weight of this stuff being lifted off your shoulders, weight you currently feel whenever you cast a critical eye about your surroundings. (I mean, don’t your shoulders just slump when you look at all that stuff you gotta clean?)
And you’re not even touching the Windex yet.
- CAYG.
For those of you who work/have worked in restaurants, you might have run across this one - Clean As You Go. An example is what just happened: I finished typing point 1, got up to hit the restroom, and took my empty soda can with me to throw in the recycling bin.
Cleaning as you go. When you pop that dinner in the oven, since you’re standing there already, go ahead and throw the food wrappings in the trash can and put the dishes in the dishwasher. That way, when dinner is ready you’ll have fewer dishes to clean.
I’m a Southerner and I like to cook pan-fried foods (I do a mean cube steak, and am one of the few people I know who regularly fries chicken), and there’s not a time when I’m not cleaning - either my hands (I must wash my hands 20 times when prepping poultry), or the dishes I was just using. When I bread the meat, I clean up the breading implements while the chicken is frying - I don’t leave it do be done “later”, after dinner. My goal is to always have nothing more to clean when dinner is done cooking than the dishes on the table.
Clean as you go. But get rid of the stuff first - if you don’t, it’ll break your heart.
*With me it was those baseball cards I bought one year. Whoo-hoo! Rueben Sierra’s and Todd van Poppel’s rookie cards - bet those will be worth something someday! 
Things I am good about:
- I make the bed every day.
- I do laundry regularly (I might not put it away, but I have clean clothes).
Things I can work on this week:
- I can put the laundry away.
- I can stay caught up with the dishes.
- I can get rid of ten things a day.
I’ll report back. I may not start until tomorrow, as I’m still feeling pretty yuck today (my sinuses are making my teeth hurt).
(Please ignore Pollyana tone of post.)
I like that idea just fine. I do have different issues. Someone living alone in an apartment gets to pick up after themselves and the cat. I don’t clean cat hair (no cat), but Brainiac4 and I do laundry for four and have to hassle two kids into picking up after themselves and the kid dandruff.
Last nights progress - did meet the goal of getting a whole load of laundry through the process - the one in the dryer got fluffed and folded and PUT AWAY. The one in the washer moved to the dryer (before it needed to be rewashed), and a new load went into the washer. I also got the dishes moved through. Its not much - but something.
Wait a minute. JETSONS LIED TO ME! Where’s my Rosie? Where’s my rocket car? Where’s my automatic wake-up assembly line?
I could seriously use a Rosie, though. She comes with a vacuum attachment. The only vacuum in La casa del Gnome y Spaz is about twenty years old, was found in the attic and needs a new belt. So we have to sweep the carpets. Which is not fun when your allergies are acting up.
A brief confession: I cannot clean the fridge anymore. I used to clean apartments before move-in for the complex I used to live in a couple of years ago. The fridges came with the apartment, so I had to clean those as well. gagdieick When we moved, I made two resolutions:
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I will never buy Shedd’s Spread Country Crock. I have seen that stuff in every possible state of decomposition.
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I will never clean the fridge again. If Spazgnome wants it clean, he has to do it. I start getting nauseous just thinking about it and our fridge is clean! Even if something spills in there, he has to wipe it up.
My biggest problem is that I just don’t see the point, for the house I’m using.
Normally I have an area that’s messy but the rest of the house can be shown to visits without any need to shove stuff out of the way, no corpses, no pet hair, it’s fine.
But this apartment is tiny and, well, about half the furniture in it is things I’ll never use for the usage for which they were intended. Probability of me sitting in the too-soft sofa: aproaching zero. Of using the second bed: same. The armchair: are you kidding?
Guess what I really need to do is ask the manager whether I can put that furniture away. Then I wouldn’t have available surfaces on which to dump my half-used clothes.
I have to think about goals. I got some things done yesterday, and I will be home very late tonight (literally, right about bedtime), so I think I will need to take a hard look at my life and see if I will need to give myself permission to take Thursdays easy or even off.
What I’ve found is that I can keep my space clean when it’s just me. Before my husband left for a week long vacation awhile back, we did one of those mondo cleaning sessions, and the place stayed clean while he was gone. Further, when I went to pet sit for a friend for a couple of weeks (living in her home), I was also able to keep the place clean. Dishes never stacked up, papers were always neatly put away, etc. However, when I’m living with someone else, it all goes to hell. I’m not blaming my husband here, though he has bad habits. It’s just that for whatever reason, my habits go to shit when I am trying to clean up after both of us.
Basically, I’m pretty good at maintaining, but I’m crap at the mondo overhauls, because I get intimidated. And I give myself permission to slack too easily if I see someone else doing the same.
In terms of what we already acomplish, there’s not much. We do make the bed daily, and just before this thread started (like two days), we sat down and started making up a chore sheet. I’m going to need to look at some of the previous links, and see what sorts of chores I’m just forgetting.
Oh, and my landlord wants us to vaccuum the back of the fridge. I think we’ll try to do that on our weekend (Mon/Tues).
One of my really big problems is that I don’t put stuff away very well. I’ll bring in the mail, pull out the important stuff, and throw the rest down somewhere. A week later, it’s still there, along with lots of buddies. 
I pull out a book to look something up, finish with it, and set it down. Somewhere. Sometimes I even find it again in a reasonable amount of time.
I read recently that a big issue with some clutterers is a little cognitive defect where you need to have things where you can SEE them in order to remember that you HAVE them. I think that’s part of my problem. Out of sight, out of mind is really true for me. I don’t think the solution is more shelving/storage, unless I want to have my whole house lined with big open shelves.
It’s a puzzlement.
The words all make sense… but not together. 
I like the Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday idea. Or the ‘come up with a personal and non-overwhelming task list’. Both good.
I think we can trust each other never to be chirpy.
Maybe you can get storage classified but in a way that you can open the doors and see everything. I have too many books to do that but I’ve sort of grouped them. I can’t see all my books at the same time, but I can see all my computer-related books at the same time, for example.
I can’t have a closet where I’m not able to see all the hangers at the same time. And I can only have several items in the same hanger if they’re “a unit” (that top only goes with that skirt) or if I can see both at the same time. My mother dresses by units - her head explodes every time I take a white blouse that was with some navy slacks and wear it with grey slacks “oh, but that blouse goes with the navy slacks!” “no Mom, it simply was stored with them, it’s a white blouse, it goes with pretty much anything.” My own head attempts to explode every time I try to wrap it up around the idea of a white blouse going with navy slacks but not with grey or black ones 