Organization: Week 1

This is the first of two belated updates I should have written earlier this week!

My first week of attempted organization/cleanliness went pretty well. We got everything cleaned up on Friday (the 9th) before Jon's brother got here to hang out for the weekend. This was nice as it gave me a basically orderly apartment to work with. As of Friday the 16th, one week later, I am proud to say that the apartment actually looked the same, if not better, than the Friday before!

I was able to keep things basically tidy from day to day, and keep up with the dishes. I always want to put this off, but I hope if I force myself to do it every day long enough, it will become a habit. In addition, over the course of the week I managed to do laundry, vacuum, dust, clean the counters, sweep, and mop. The toilet and the stove each got a superficial cleaning, not as thorough as I had wanted to give them. Jobs I had on my list that I didn't get to at all included cleaning the shower, mirrors, and windows.

So it wasn't a perfect run this first week. But it was definitely an improvement over my normal housekeeping performance, so I'm calling it a success!

I also made some headway in the less obvious behind-the-scenes work of organizing things. There is one big thing I've been re-examining because of the book my grandma lent me - where things go. I'm now trying to have a definite place where each thing goes, and to have that place be in the most convenient location.

I'll use Gwena's meds as an example. I used to keep her enzymes in the living room, because that's where I usually feed her. It seems convenient, but there were always empty enzyme capsules all over the coffee table. Now I've realized, even though I feed her in the living room, I get her food ready in the kitchen. So now I've started keeping the enzymes in the kitchen, and pouring them onto the food before I move to the living room. Now the coffee table is much cleaner!

I still have a long way to go before I can call myself an "organized housewife", so we'll see how long I can keep this up. In other exciting news, my grandma says she has another book she wants to lend me! Why am I excited to read about housework??

Getting Organized

I'm going to be honest here... I'm a messy person. I leave things on the floor, in front of books on shelves, on the counter, just wherever... I tell myself I'll do the dishes "later" or sweep the floor "tomorrow"... pretty soon our home looks like a disaster. I've never learned to pick up after myself as I go. My husband is the same way.

For a while now I've been struggling against the bad habits I've been cultivating for 25 years. It shouldn't be hard to keep a small one bedroom apartment clean, right? But somehow, it is. I've been fearing the day (probably in a few months) when we move into a house. If I can't keep an apartment in order, how can I ever manage a whole house? If I can't do chores when I've only got one child, what will I do when we have two, or three, or four??

The other day at my grandma's house I noticed a book on her shelf and asked if I could borrow it. The book is Confessions of an Organized Housewife by Deniece Schofield. It is full of great ideas on how to have an organized home, keep up with the housework, and have time left over for fun! The book was published in 1981 so the version I read is a bit outdated in some areas (index card files??) so I'll probably pick up the updated version from the library, Confessions of an Organized Homemaker.

A lot of the things in the book seem like common sense, in fact I've thought of a number of them myself. But the book has made me realize how much easier it would make my life to do these things, how much time I could save. I'm inspired now and determined to get my home and my time organized! And if there's one thing that NaNoWriMo and natural childbirth have taught me, it's that if I'm determined enough, I can do nearly anything!

More posts should follow about my desperate fight against disorganization and my own terrible habits, with more specifics about ideas from the book that I'm implementing.