Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Time?

Although it is Tuesday evening, I am only just getting to reading this week's tasks. In Organized Life, this is Kitchen Week, so I swapped out the living room (this week's task in the Cleaning Grand Plan) for the kitchen.

The cleaning grand plan casually suggests emptying every drawer, cleaning everything within it and putting it all back; cleaning every appliance (fridge, oven, toaster oven, microwave, etc) inside and out, scrubbing the sink with a toothbrush, the list goes on. No wonder my house is not clean and organized! going through this list and doing all of these things would take at least a week of all day in the kitchen. At best, I've got 2, maybe 3 hours this week to devote to this. I might get through one cabinet. Jeesh!

The Organized Life plan for the kitchen is much more doable - basically a 15 - 30 minute speed round of getting rid of unneeded things. That, I can handle!

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Moving Things Around

 

 

 

Although this month's focus in One year to an organized life is the Kitchen, the taking down of the Christmas tree afforded opportunity in the living room, so I went for it. Gavin had expressed an interest in having a little reading area, so I moved the love seat to where the tree/train table used to be, moved the train table to where the treadmill used to be, moved the treadmill to where the party chairs used to be and moved the party chairs into an underutilized area of the garage quite near the door. Now I'm worn out!

Still, I did buy 2 pansies for my entry way and will spend time working on the foyer during the week, according to the Annual Grand Plan. I'd like to get a new rug in there - maybe get something from Target or Ikea. I'm also pondering painting the entry way, though that might be a bit much for this week, as I don't even have a color in mind. Maybe I'll repeat the 13 weeks after everything is clean and organized and focus on decorating in the second set. then I'll be ready for the holiday preparation time. Here was part of my inspiration for doing something new there, from Real Simple.
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Saturday, January 9, 2010

Second Time is the Charm?

Last year, I got One Year to an Organized Life by Regina Leeds as a requested Christmas gift. It has handy week by week activities to organize one's house and life. I made it to the second week. Well, I've dusted off the book and am trying again, together with the Cleaning Grand Plan and Real Simple'e Daily Quick Cleaning Checklist. Something is bound to stick.

Anyway, this week's task for both the cleaning grand plan and Organized Life is to ponder the coming activities. Leeds argues for regular journaling to document the process. So, this blog is my organizing journal.

I've set up my cleaning notebook and this blog and I'm about to get started on my Winter meal plan notebook. Who knows if any of this will stick, but I certainly have more time than last year, now that my dissertation is over, and that will help.