I have succumbed.

{via Pinterest}

Miranda told me about it ages ago.

Jessie tempted me with it again.

I was reluctant to dive into something that I knew would prove to be addictive, but ultimately I could not resist.

Visual bookmarks that you can organize and categorize any way you like?

I'm all in.

"brain box"

Many of you have been curious about the "brain boxes" that Jill and I made last week, so I'm posting my notes from last week's organizing class, as well as some photos of my box that might clear up some of your questions.

*Move toward housecleaning by mood to housecleaning by method. In other words, don't perform cleaning tasks when you feel like it. You might never feel like doing certain chores, or you might never feel like cleaning at all! When you have a method to keeping your home clean and organized, all needed tasks get done eventually.

The beauty of this idea is that once you have done whatever jobs you need to do each day, you don't have to think about cleaning anymore. You are free to do something else that you enjoy more.

That right there was the clincher for me. Normally I don't allow myself to do something that I want to do unless all my other work is done -- but all my other work is never done! With this method, I don't have to worry that I haven't changed the beds yet or that the fridge needs to be cleaned out, because I know I will get to it -- soon -- on its appointed day. This is so liberating to me.

Now, if I have accomplished all of the cards I have assigned myself for any given day (and I don't have to drive the kids somewhere, etc.), I will be free to do something for me, just because! Sewing, reading, knitting, learning Illustrator, writing notes, organizing my studio... all pleasing possibilities!

Here's the schematic:


Get a 3x5 index card box and some dividers. (Colorful, striped index cards are optional, but they make me happy.)

Label the tabs on your dividers as follows:

daily
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter

*Order should be restored daily.
*Cleaning should be done weekly.
*Scrubbing should be done monthly or even less often.

Divide your household tasks among things that should be done daily, weekly, monthly, or seasonally. Make one card for each task and file accordingly.

Evaluate your schedule, and pace yourself. Don't assign yourself many jobs to do on a day that is busy with non-negotiable items such as kids' lessons and activities or work schedules. Alternate tasks and plan according to daily rhythms.

Some of my daily tasks include:

make beds
tidy family room
tidy bathrooms
plan dinner


some examples of weekly tasks:

Monday: laundry, grocery shopping
Tuesday: file bills/paperwork
Wednesday: dust
Thursday: vacuum, mop, bathrooms
Saturday: supervise kids' chores, purge fridge, finish up Sunday lesson


My monthly chores include:

change furnace filters
pay bills
vacuum furniture
clean stove hood
clean grout
prepare Conference activities/baskets (March & September)

and some of my seasonal tasks:

clean baseboards
clean out pantry
clean oven
flip mattresses

Obviously, this would be different for everyone. The idea is to figure out a schedule that works for you. I have a feeling that this is going to be a work in progress, and things may get shifted around. That's okay.

Some general notes on housecleaning:

-Housecleaning is not about keeping a house clean, it's about creating a little bit of heaven on earth.

-The Spirit loves to reside in a place of order and cleanliness.

-When we have an orderly home, we are all much more pleasant.

-Let your children duplicate your motions as much as they are willing and able.

-Quality is important with cleaning tools -- don't buy them at the grocery store. Check places like Home Depot or janitorial supply stores. Don't keep what doesn't work.

-Microfiber cloths drastically reduce the need for cleansers. Get as many things in microfiber as possible. (She had an awesome-looking mop with a microfiber head that I'd like to get my hands on.)

-White vinegar is the best thing to clean off hard water deposits. Use it to clean your shower heads, run it through an empty dishwasher or washing machine to clean.

-Use Old English lemon oil to get hard water spots off of a glass shower door. (I bought some, I'll let you know how it works.)

-Simple Green is the best kitchen de-greaser. (I have looked at Target, Walmart, and Harmon's and haven't been able to find it!)

-Scrubbing is not as good as soaking.

-A grout scrub brush is useful for all sorts of crevices and corners.

-You can buy handy disposable adhesive remover wipes at a medical supply store.

-Homemade Windex recipe:

1 t. ammonia
4 drops dish soap
1/4 c. rubbing alcohol
1 drop green food coloring (to distinguish it from water or other cleaners)
Put all in a spray bottle and fill with water. Also good for carpet stains.

-Biz will take out anything organic in the wash.

Marie has a website that has lots of useful information: www.houseoforder.com.

I'm excited about my new method! But I have to keep reminding myself that having the box all set up is not going to keep my home clean and organized. I have to actually do what I wrote on the cards every day...

**Edited to add:

- You are supposed to take out all the cards that you will work on for the day, then put them back in the appropriate spots once you complete the tasks. (For instance, if I work on a monthly task, I will file it under the March tab once completed for February.)

At first I thought I didn't need to take out the cards. I just looked at them to see what I needed to do. But then I found it was all too easy to just not do them. Today I took them all out and I am finding it is satisfying to complete a task and then file the card. Whatever works, I guess.

- Jill also suggested that it might be satisfying to date the cards each time we accomplish a task.

- If you don't get to a job as planned -- not because you didn't feel like doing it, but because you got sick or something unexpected came up -- skip that task and tackle it the next day, week, or month as regularly scheduled.

life in my world

That's really just another way of saying that I have more miscellany to report, but since I already did a miscellaneous post on Monday, I had to switch it up a little. (I'm tricky that way.)


Eva and I made dinner today at 10:00 a.m. It's thrilling to me to have dinner taken care of in the morning! Yeah, I'm pretty easy to please. I have so much more energy mid-morning than I do in the late afternoon/evening, so I'm trying to make things work with my natural rhythms.

I found it funny that Eva was a great helper, even though she finds meat and sauce revolting and will in no way eat the lasagna that we made.

I went to the dentist to get my broken tooth checked out. Of course it needs a crown, and they can't fit me in until Monday. Bummer.

On the bright side, my dentist pretty much made Eva's day. He is the father of Ashleigh from So You Think You Can Dance, and has photos of Ashleigh and Ryan displayed in his office. Eva told him that she is taking dance lessons now, and that she wants to be on SYTYCD like Ashleigh. He was tickled that Eva knew who Ashleigh was and had seen her on TV. He got kind of teary when he told us that her dance performances over the years were his greatest parenting moments. Then he indulged Eva by watching some of her new moves, and encouraged her to stick with it and practice hard. So cute.

(A bit of interesting news for those of you who follow the show: he said that after the show ended, the dancers were so completely exhausted and weak from the grueling schedule that when they made an appearance on the Ellen Degeneres show, they had to have i.v.'s and vitamin shots. Seriously! Also that it took 4 weeks after they came home for their bodies to recover.

And apparently Ashleigh and Ryan are being heavily recruited for Dancing with the Stars. I don't watch that show, though.)

I went to Dollar Tree yesterday to see if they had any plastic dishpans to help with my organizing efforts. They did, and in black, to boot! Sweet. I am now ready to turn shelves into drawers.

How I wish I had taken a "before" picture of all of these stupid kid plastic cups! They have been driving me insane for a long time. Every time I would open the drawer, they would shift and fall over and generally just be a big mess. But now they are corralled in a bin and they will move no more! This made me so very happy. (And, come on, why didn't I think of that years ago?!)

Again, I really should have taken a "before" photo, with my tea towels stuffed into the cupboard every which way. I could not even believe how many I had when I took them all out! And I found some really cute ones in the way back that I had completely forgotten about and never used. I wish I would have counted them, it's kind of ridiculous how many I have.

Ta-da! Eva helped me sort and fold them all. We put holiday ones in one bin and the rest in another. (I discovered I have 7 Halloween tea towels. Really?) Now I can just pull out the bin and find what I want -- this is revolutionary for me.

These are the ones I'm tossing. I'm estimating around 20 of them. Do you think I have a tea towel problem?

I'm baby-stepping my way to being more organized and am finding it very satisfying. Told you I'm easy to please!

drowning in good ideas

It's funny, I sat down to post last night, and looked at Jill's latest post first. She wrote about just what I was going to. I went to bed instead.

But today, I'm going to do it anyway. You know, because this is my record. So feel free to skip it, if you like.

Collette invited us to an 8-week organizing class taught by Marie Ricks from houseoforder.com. I think I am a prime candidate for such class. So much, in fact, that after attending the lecture last week, I felt completely overwhelmed. I didn't do one thing differently last week. I think Jenn said it best when she said, "I'm drowning in good ideas."

This week was different. I felt really motivated, and I've already started to make some changes.

But first, my notes:

Kitchen organization ideas

- Clear off the counters. When we place something on the counter, it gives everyone else permission to put stuff there as well. (Isn't that the truth?) If you keep surfaces clean, people are less likely to dirty it.

- Are the items on our counters "friends" or "freeloaders"? If something could go somewhere else, try to find it a different home. (example, she found she didn't really use her knife block, so she got rid of it. And she hates the way toasters look, so she keeps hers in a cupboard.)

- Put the things you use most within easiest reach.

- Get rid of anything that doesn't work.

- If there is anything that doesn't really belong in the kitchen, move it.

- Use drawer dividers, even ones that you make out of boxes if necessary, to maximize your space and minimize shifting.

- Drawers are more useful than shelves. Wherever possible, use dishpans or other inexpensive, open containers to create a pull-out drawer.

- Store like things behind like things, unlike things next to each other.

- Go to work with what you have and make it work for you.

Paperwork

- Papers that are confined or kept for the long-term should be in files. Papers that you use frequently should be in binders.

- Create a household binder with a tab for each family member. Store schedules and the like behind each person's tab. Have a numbers tab where you keep important phone numbers, account numbers, etc. Copy everything in your wallet and file it here for use in case of theft.

- Journal binders. Create a binder for each family member with tabs for each year of his/her life. It's just as easy to file them in a binder as in a file, and it will be complete when a child leaves home. Children will be much less likely to organize their papers later on, so this is a gift to them. File important papers and a sampling of the best school papers from each year. Be selective about what you save and file.

- Create an identity binder with copies of important documents. Keep one in a safety deposit box. Include detailed physical descriptions, photographs, fingerprints, copies of social security numbers, driver's licenses, birth certificates, deeds, insurance info.

This is where I felt completely overwhelmed. I think this is all good information, and I'm keeping it to work on at some point. Just not right this minute. Now on to the part that really got me thinking and moving.

Time management

- He who prepares early prepares without work. (example: looking at your Primary lesson at the beginning of the week means that your mind will subconsciously be working on it all week long, making connections, getting ideas -- much better than waiting until Saturday.)

- The law of firsts: When you put the most important things into your day/week/month first, everything else fills in nicely. (examples: pay tithing as soon as you are paid, exercise in the morning, do your visiting teaching by the 15th, read scriptures in the morning, pay bills at the first of the month)

- We cannot neglect the law of firsts with our families and have our children grow up to be safe. If your spouse will not support you in this, do it alone.

- You will be blessed by aligning your priorities with the Lord's.

- Evaluate activities that are important vs. activities that are urgent. Try to address the urgent things that come up before they become urgent. Most of us live on the edge in one way or another. (examples: letting our prescriptions get to the very end before we refill them, running out of printer ink or gas in the car, etc.) Move away from urgency.

- What are we avoiding or postponing? Address those things.

- Think of your life as a wagon wheel. You are the hub. Take care of yourself first, then your spouse, then your children and any of the other spokes coming out from you. Then turn your attention and energy (if any remains) outward to the world. So many of us have this reversed.

- Figure out what your prime time is every day. When are you most alert, have the most energy? Do important tasks then. Take advantage of your natural energy highs and lows.

- Take advantage of your most alone time every day. True alone time means that no one is asking you a question, you don't have to answer the phone, and there is no media interrupting your spirit. Use your most alone time to: plan, prepare, think, and ponder. We all have more peace and calm when we have at least some alone time every day.

- A child who is loved well becomes a mighty force for good. Whatever stage of life you are in, saturate yourself with its joys.

- Only when we give up what doesn't matter are we empowered to do what is really important.

- Schedule more "launch time" and "land time" for your tasks and activities. We live in halfway houses of clutter because we don't take time for landing, or putting things away completely.

- Don't answer the phone 20 minutes before you need to leave or you will be late.

- The spirit of a family on Sunday is determined by the mother's mood as she enters the chapel. Increase your launch time.

- Address whatever is not working and figure out how to make it work.

- Never wait uselessly. Have a plan of what you will do during wait time: read, write a note, find an opportunity to teach something to your children.

- Whenever you say yes to something, you are saying no to something else, and vice versa. Pull back and evaluate so you can make decisions with wisdom.

- Take control of your own life.

- Don't mistake activity for accomplishment. Do things less often, but better, and double your capacity. A different approach can make you much more efficient.

- Give yourself permission to play. The person who never plays is not fun to be around. Allow yourself, your spouse, and your children to see the fun side of you. (I am choosing to interpret this as playing games and doing things that are fun to me. Quite often, the things that Eva wants me to do are not fun to me. At all.)

- Alternate what you are doing to give yourself energy to go on. Vary active tasks with sedentary ones, boring tasks with stimulating ones, activities we enjoy with those we don't. Stop before you are tired whenever possible.

- When planning your day, divide it into 6 sections: already in cement, things I would like to do, odds & ends, dinner, sit-down activities, and inspiration. Also, make your life easier by figuring out what you'll serve for dinner before noon.

This, in particular, made me think. I am queen of making lists, but often I'm not so good at prioritizing tasks. I tried it yesterday and was thrilled. I certainly didn't accomplish everything on my list, but I did do the most important things.

Better still, I felt completely in charge of myself yesterday. I felt like I could do anything. I felt like changes were on the horizon. Like this was going to be a great year. It was so empowering!

(So what happened today? Well, it was Creative Friday and I didn't really have any other obligations, so I didn't even make a plan for the day.)