Getting my house in order

[cjsmith]

Lent reminds non-Catholic me of the powerful idea of making a change for a finite period of time. Hat tip to mactavish for mentioning the idea of taking on a discipline.

Thirty minutes per day on any of (or any combination of) the following tasks:

• House cleanup (doing dishes, putting books and papers and clothes away, what the cat did, fridge purge)
• Organization (finding places for things, filing papers properly, getting photos into albums)
• Financial organization (set up a 2005 Roth IRA, do 2005 taxes, update my will, Quicken, etc)
• Online organization (get rid of the old e-mail address!)
• Decluttering (papers, clothing, kitchen junk, the garage, jigsaw puzzles)
• Minor improvements (replanting flowers, finishing the printer table, finishing a shirt I'm making)

By the end of this I'll know which of these tasks I use to put off others. I suspect I'll also have a place that's halfway nice to live in.

Comments

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Decluttering sounds like as big a job for you as it has been for us. We've each been at it for months.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I probably give that impression, but what I've really been doing is not decluttering for months. I get a big pile of energy and I go at it, and maybe I make a LJ post, and then pretty quickly I fizzle.

Inspired & motivated, now!

[nurvuslee.livejournal.com]

I think I might do what you just did ... list all of the things that need to be done and spend a certain amount of time doing *at least* something from that list EACH DAY! Thanks for the idea, CJ!

Re: Inspired & motivated, now!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome! Thank mactavish; she inspired me. :-)

Now I hope I get to the long-term stuff and don't spend ALL the time on bullet point one.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

that's actually a brilliant idea! *signs up*

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Cool! g'luck! I'm hoping I don't spend so much time on the first category (basic maintenance) that I fail to get to any of the others (actual improvement).

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

it's the piles and piles of paper lying around various parts of the house that i'm hoping to make a dent in

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Paper is the hardest, per unit volume, isn't it? Each piece or small set is a separate entity to be dealt with individually.

Unless you're planning to torch the lot. Got a fireplace? ;-)

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

oh, the temptation :)