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 The world from a short person's POV - not Australia or New Zealand. |
Random thoughts, pointed comments, and whatever else crosses my mind 
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| We should not give up and we should not allow the problem to defeat us. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Julie Morgenstern identified some of the most common Technical Errors. When your space/life is getting out of control you have probably fallen prey to one or more of them. Items have no home: If you don't designate a space for items before you bring them into your home, you will tend to put them anywhere, usually the first surface you come to. Look and what is stacked up around your front door entrance or mud/laundry room. Is this where everything gets dropped? Without a designated location that is probably where it will stay. Or do you move items from one location to another to get them out of the way and then have trouble remembering where they are? Have you ever bought an item twice because you couldn't find the one you thought you bought some time ago? Solution: Take the time to look at what you have and assign a single, consistent home for each item. (More on this subject in my next post). Make sure all family members know where items are to be stored so they can help put them away and retrieve them when necessary. If you make changes, be sure to let everyone know. Inconvenient Storage: If it is too hard to put something away, you probably won't do it. It could be that you are storing things too far away from where you use them. So when you are finished with them you let them set and pile up rather than returning them to where you want to store them. Perhaps the storage unit you are using isn't working for what you want to store. If your closet is stuffed with boxes of out of season clothing and bags of "give away" items, you are not likely to put the clothes that should be stored in your closet away. If drawers are not easy to open and close, you will set things on top or keep moving them around until you find another drawer, (usually nowhere near where you plan on using the item). If the only shelving you have available is too high or the closet too dark, you will have trouble using them to store what you need to store there. Solution: Design your space based on convenience, storing items at their point of use. Consider moving items that don't belong in that area to another area or out of the house completely. Lower the shelving if you can or make sure a step stool is always handy, (something I have to do being a "down under," don't you know.)  Add small battery powered lights to closets or pantries.Complex, Confusing System: Many people in an attempt to become organized, set up complicated systems, overcategorizing items and ending up with too many places to look. Your system may have made sense to you when you first sorted all those papers, creating files for every little category, but later you forget the logic behind it. When you go to find something, you feel baffled and frustrated. You know you put things in a safe sensible place, but you can't remember where. Or, you ask a family member to get some needed paperwork for you and they tell you they can't find it in your storage system. Solution: Keep it simple. Try to be logical and use clues that will help you trust your system. Later we will look at suggestions on how to use location, containers, and labels to design a system that works for you. Label makers, markers and chalkboard paint will help. Here are just a few random thoughts as we move on to the next step: If you like to leave things out in an attempt to remember that you need to do something with them, you may find that bills get slipped between books and homework assignments, items that need mending get mixed in with clothes that need ironing. Remember like items need to stay together. Bills can go in an open folder on the desk (not on the kitchen counter or dining room table). Set books for the library next to the door you use to get to the car. Mending goes in one basket close to the sewing kit and ironing goes in a basket near the ironing board and iron (keep them together). Try to set up a routine and mark tasks on a calendar that you look at on a regular basis. If you think organizing is a boring, unpleasant waste of your time, try getting creative with your storage containers and enlist a family member or friend to help you when you get bogged down. Here's a novel thought: have a "girls day in party". Offer lunch and enlist friends to help sort clutter and put items in appropriate containers you have labeled. Offer to let them search items you no longer want and let them take them with them. Maybe you could all try a hand at making attractive containers or have a contest to see who can sort and organize the quickest. If you lived close to me, I would gladly come to your party. |
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Fire dancers!!! Wow! What fun! You really are in Paradise! So happy you for you! 
But I wish I loved it. That would be SO HANDY! So, I've been working on positive self-talk regarding cleaning. I smile when I say these things and I say them out loud if I'm alone or in my head if I'm not. I say things like, "I love to clean. Cleaning is fun. Cleaning makes me happy. I enjoy a tidy space." Blah, blah, blah...
Sure, it's dumb, but if it works, it doesn't matter. 
). 
I'm the prime example of someone who needed her own advice over 40 years ago. 