De-Cluttering Update

Well, I have a shiny sink (most days). My counters are relatively clutter free and I’m loving actually having counter space to work on. I wasn’t able to part with the paint can turned Halloween can or the cool Russian wine bottle. The can is actually quite good at holding pencils and pens. I plan to incorporate the bottle into decorating. Somewhere. Somehow. It really is cool.

My next task was to be the dining room, but this week has been primarily working to maintain my kitchen cleanliness.

The table will be my biggest challenge in the dining room. One corner is filled with our daughter’s art projects and paraphernalia. Another corner is Halloween candy. Yes, Halloween candy. And my rice cooker. You see, I didn’t have room on the counters to put it in the kitchen, so I put it on the corner of the dining table near an outlet. I suppose I can put it back in the kitchen now. Novel idea, huh?  Then the other half is primarily mail and crap that needs to be shredded or tossed.

One question comes to mind as I work on these things: How does this tie into More 2 This Life? Is my de-cluttering and cleaning basically the same thing as just trying to make it through the day, same old same old? Perhaps on some level, yes. But I also believe that if my home is clean, tidy, peaceful, etc. then we’ll feel that way when we’re at home. How many sayings have you heard regarding one’s home? Here are a few I found:

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home. (John Howard Payne)

He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home. (van Goethe)

Home is the most popular, and will be the most enduring of all earthly establishments. (Channing Pollock)

I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can’t truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles. (Zig Ziglar)

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort. (Jane Austen)

I think the best thing I can do is to be a distraction. A husband lives and breathes his work all day long. If he comes home to more table thumping, how can the poor man ever relax? (Jackie Kennedy)

Now I realize that last quote will likely trigger some feelings about women being oppressed and all that not-so-good stuff, but that’s another post. I also believe that Ziglar’s quote refers to more than just the physical state of the home, but that’s maybe another post one day too. The bottom line is that all of these quotes describe the home as a place to get away, find peace, find comfort, find distraction from work, a place that you can go and just be yourself and not worry. Do you really believe you can find all that in the midst of clutter? I can’t. I may enjoy sitting and doing nothing for a bit, but the chaos will eventually get to me.

Having a place you can come into and be comfortable, be at peace, and just be yourself – THAT, to me, is an important part to an abundant life.

And that’s how all this de-cluttering fits into finding More 2 This Life.

The power of… the shiny sink.

Why would you want to shine your sink? Because it’s GORGEOUS! See?

Ooooo.... shiinnnyyy!

If you haven’t discovered FlyLady yet, feel free to hop over and visit. Who is FlyLady? She’s an extremely organized lady who is encouraging others to FLY! One of the ways we can fly is by keeping our house organized and out of CHAOS (can’t have anyone over syndrome, btw). The first step is to shine your sink. I agree, it sounds silly. She even told me it would sound silly. But I did it. And if you do it, I’m willing to bet you’ll love it too and here’s why:

Because you’ll want to keep it that way

My mom has shined mine for me. Multiple times. And it was gorgeous each time. But guess what? Within a few days it was back to normal. My theory is that it’s because I didn’t do it. We tend to be a little more possessive of something we’ve done ourselves. When someone else does it for us, we don’t have quite the same attachment.

Because you’ll want to shiny up more

You’ll want to shiny up the spaces around that shiny sink (notice that the picture does NOT include the counters around the sink… yet. It’ll come. Patience, grasshopper.). I had dishes on the left side that were from the dishwasher – mostly plastics that needed to dry a little more before being put away. There were other odds and ends from my daughter’s days of sippy cups (she’s about to turn 7. SEVEN!).  There are also sometimes pots or pans that I hand-washed and set over there to dry. No more! It made me want to continue de-cluttering, but I made myself stop. Some of you clean-freak types (and even some of you who know it’s rare that we get into a “cleaning mood”) are probably yelling, “Why?!”

Baby Steps

I stopped because I had told myself I would clean off and shine my sink. That was it. After that was quality time with my husband and the completion of a  much anticipated Dr. Who episode. Tonight, I’ll be doing another piece of the counter, shine my sink, then go have some more quality time with my husband.

I’ll be honest. I’m not looking forward to this. I enjoy organizing, but I’m also a bit of a pack rat. “But that wine bottle is so neat and it’s clay with a foreign language on it, so it must be valuable! So what if it was something the previous owners left when we moved in 5 years ago!” “Hey, I might find the cup this lid goes to…” “Awww… Taylor made that Halloween bucket out of a paint can when she was in K-4. Or was it K-3?” Any of those sound vaguely familiar?

Each night, I’ll be shining my sink. I hope you will too – it really is a neat feeling.

Choosing 6 for 2010

Why is there a picture of a cluttered countertop? (Trust me, it’s a countertop.)  I’m so glad you asked!

Over on my links page is a blog called Zen Habits. Leo Babauta, the guy who runs it, has created another blog called 6 Changes and says that this method is “the antidote to the failure of New Year’s Resolutions”. I’ve read through the method and have chosen my 6 that will be worked on through the course of this year. He says to make it as public as possible, so here goes!  The first one I’m going to work on is *drumroooollllll*  Clutter!  (the crowd goes wild!!). Or not. My friends and family will probably laugh. To be honest, part of me is also thinking, “Ha! Yeah… right.” and “Good luck with that…”  I have a dichotomy going on in my noggin, after all. Look at my countertops and other open spaces and it’s a mess. Open up a cabinet drawer and it’s (usually) organized and neat. So, for the sake of specificity, my goal is stated thusly: I will de-clutter one room of my house each week (and keep it de-cluttered)!

Each goal is to take two months and I have 8 rooms in my house (I’m considering our two bathrooms as “one”).  I decided to start with clutter because, honestly, it’s the one driving me the craziest right now. I want to eat healthier and lose weight and will be working on that some, but my primary focus during the first two months of the year will be de-cluttering.

I’ll be updating my progress here, obviously.

He also stresses the importance of enjoying the journey. If I don’t enjoy what I’m doing, it’s doubtful that it will stick. I suppose this is where I let my inner obsessive-compulsive out. When I have cleaned a room, I LOVE the way it looks. It’s so neat. Everything is in its proper spot. I can’t explain the aesthetic feeling I get when I look at a neat and well put together room. I love it! My chest feels like it could pop and I want to freeze that moment forever. But without fail, within a few weeks, I get lazy and just set something down instead of putting it away. Or, I see that someone else has put something down instead of putting it away and, for some insane reason, I see that as permission. That one innocent little item leads to the path of destruction. Okay, slight exaggeration, but it’s not long after that “one item” appears that the rest of the room is suddenly cluttered again.

In an attempt to thwart that, I also have come across a plan that allows one to do a quick “clean-up” for each room of a house. It involves having all the tools together, so that’ll be part of my journey to the goal – putting together the right tools.

In one of his posts on minimalism, Leo says to look at your possessions and determine if what you have is truly important. “Whittle it down until you’re left with the minimum for the life you want to lead.”  So, each day, I will go in whatever room I’m working on in a given week and look for things that are not needed and get rid of them. I’m planning to do one section of the room each day (another option is setting a time limit, but I know I won’t want to quit in the middle of a section if time is up). So, I’ll clear out a section and divide it into keep, trash, give away. He suggests another box for items I’m not sure about: box it up, label it, if I haven’t opened it in 6 months, give it away or trash it.

I also need to figure out a trigger – something I do every day – weekdays AND weekends. Why? Because if I plan to add that task, I’m likely to let it slide when things get busy. If the task is tied to something I already do, it’s more likely to stick.  That said, I’ve also recently discovered a little site called FlyLady. This lady is ÜBER organized and I can SO see myself going there.