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Post by drsarah on Jan 1, 2015 12:29:58 GMT
So, I've already said in Shellie's 2015 thread that my goal for 2015 is to build on the organising and decluttering work I did in my life and home in 2014. To add a bit of interest and structure to that, I'm going to try following a couple of lists from a blog I've been following called the Organised Housewife: theorganisedhousewife.com.au/The Organised Housewife runs a few different challenges, one of which is called '52 Things' and involves being given one decluttering challenge each week - I followed that for most of 2014, although there were quite a few weeks in there where I didn't do it either because I was too busy with other things that needed doing, because it was something I couldn't do without my husband participating, or because it just wasn't relevant to me. She also has a mailing list where she sends out daily tasks, which I didn't sign up for last year. This year, I've decided to sign up for the daily task mailing list and also to do the 52 Things Challenge again if she runs that again (at this point it's not definite whether she will or not.) I thought it would be fun to record what I do here. Realistically, I know there will be masses of days when I miss out the challenge because I'm too busy with other things or too tired or because it just isn't something relevant, so I'm going to cut myself a lot of slack on this one. The way I see it, it's something I'm doing as a fun way to get more stuff done and I'm not going to defeat that object by taking it too seriously.  Anyone who would like to join in, jump right on in to the thread as company would be even better! |
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Post by drsarah on Jan 1, 2015 12:31:34 GMT
So, beginning as I mean to go on...  I don't seem to have had an e-mail through with the task, but she posts them on her Facebook page as well and apparently today's was to change the answerphone message. We just have the standard electronic recorded one and I'm happy with that so I'm going to leave it, so I'm starting out by deciding not to do the very first task. Onwards! |
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Post by drsarah on Jan 2, 2015 23:28:04 GMT
Ah, a task much better suited to my needs: 'Gather all the kids colouring, drawings and crafts, keep what you treasure, recycle what you can and throw away the rest'. I was working today so didn't have time to do much, but I've cleared up the bits and pieces of old drawings that were in the upstairs hall and on my desk, so that's a good start. |
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Post by medusahair on Jan 3, 2015 1:28:51 GMT
Good luck Drsarah, hope the missions help you get more organised
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Post by drsarah on Jan 3, 2015 18:18:32 GMT
Thanks, Medusahair!
Didn't seem to get one through today for some reason, so instead I stuck with yesterday's and found a couple more pieces of DD's artwork in the kids' room which I put in her box as I thought they were both worth saving. Must clear that box out at some stage, but it's low on my list!
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Post by drsarah on Jan 4, 2015 21:58:07 GMT
Didn't get one today either. Which is fine by me as I had plenty of other things to do. Tomorrow's has come through already (the benefits of being 12 hours behind you guys) and is to buy cards/presents for upcoming birthdays. I have none to get for January or February, so that's one I don't need to do - which is nice as I have plenty of other things to do tomorrow! |
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Post by drsarah on Jan 11, 2015 20:47:23 GMT
Catching up on posting...
Tuesday's task was to declutter my desk, which would definitely have been a useful one. Unfortunately just didn't get time to do it.
Wednesday was to clean three walls. I kept it simple & just spent a few minutes vacuuming some cobwebs/wiping some stains off the bathroom walls.
Thursday was washing the children's soft toys, which I certainly wasn't going to bother with, so I took the chance to go back to Tuesday's task and do a couple of things from my desk.
Friday was cleaning the oven. Wasn't going to have time to do that as it was a working day, so I used it as a reminder to change the foil on the tray in the bottom of the oven, which was useful as it definitely needed doing.
Let's see... Monday's task is going to be to clean the bathroom basin taps and handles. OK, that should be a reasonable one to fit in, and definitely a useful one.
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Post by Elasti-Girl on Jan 11, 2015 20:48:28 GMT
You're doing well, drsarah! |
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Post by drsarah on Jan 13, 2015 21:10:54 GMT
Yay! Taps cleaned. For good measure I did the ones in the downstairs toilet as well, which has definitely improved the appearance of the sink, and also gave the sink in the children's room a quick wipe over to get the worst of the paint stains off. Quick and effective. Today was to clear out my handbag, which is another extremely useful one as far as I'm concerned. Not so much my handbag which I don't use often and which isn't too bad; but I also have a mini-backpack that I use more often, plus a separate bag for work which really needed a clearout. Done all three of them now. Tomorrow's task is to clean the outside of my handbag, which I think I can skip, so that's a day off. |
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Post by drsarah on Jan 17, 2015 23:02:26 GMT
Thursday - setting up a basket of stuff to go to the charity shop. Kept it simple & just spent a couple of minutes whizzing round my room picking out the charity shop things from the rest of the accumulated junk. I'd meant to actually take it down to the charity shop, since I was going into town anyway, but I forgot to do it before going to town.
Friday was just wiping off the fridge & freezer handles, so that was another two-minute job.
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Post by drsarah on Jan 31, 2015 19:37:46 GMT
Whew - haven't updated for a couple of weeks, so time I caught up. Mon 19th - getting hair done. Wasn't due for a haircut so let that one go, which was just as well as wouldn't have had time for it anyway. Ironically, I ended up not even washing my hair that night to save time! (I knew I'd have time the following morning after the kids were in school.) Tue 20th - create some space in your filing cabinet. I actually chucked out a lot of stuff from my filing drawer (don't have a cabinet) last year, so instead what I did was spend a few minutes shredding some of the stuff that had made it to the shredding pile but no further. I really need to get more of that done as I never seem to get round to it and the pile's getting massive, so that was time well spent. Wed 21st - wipe over skirting boards in three rooms. Didn't have time to do that, but I did the ones in the downstairs toilet, which frankly were so dirty I figure they ought to count as three rooms' worth. You can bet I was glad to have that one done. Thur 22nd - vacuum under all beds - um, nope, didn't do that one. Fri 23rd - wipe and clean all mobile phones - wasn't going to bother but then noticed mine was in fact getting pretty smeary so I went ahead & cleaned it. It was a quick job as my husband always keeps computer wipes around. Mon 26th - sort through linen cupboard and get rid of anything not used in the past year. Didn't do that as the linen cupboard is joint property and so I don't declutter it on my own, but I did change my sheets as that was overdue, so I figure at least I got a linen-related chore done. Tue 27th - dust/vacuum all window sills. This seemed like a bit of a time-waster until I got a look at the cobwebs round some of my window sills, when it actually started seeming like a darned good idea. I was also trying to do the WHB for the FlyLady Back to Basics, so I went round with the mini-vac in one hand and my feather duster and cloth in the other and got a fair bit of cleaning done, though I didn't go overboard trying to get the place clean (which would have taken much more time than I had). Definitely made me feel better to have that done, though. Wed 28th - clean the washing machine. Ah, I like this one - getting my appliances clean is one of the things I love doing when I get round to it but never get round to unless it ends up on a list like this, so I did enjoy getting the front of the washing machine looking gleaming again. Went on and did the dishwasher as well for good measure. Thur 29th - declutter items on the floor of your wardrobe. This would have been a good one, but I just didn't have time. It did remind me I have some stuff saved in one of the bedroom cupboards that needs to go to the charity shop, so I'll try to do that next week. Fri 30th - rotate and flip all mattresses. Have to admit that's something I just don't bother with (partly because I hate changing sheets so much) so I left that one be. And, wow, just realised that's the end of the first month! Good going! I didn't even think I'd stick with it for that long. |
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Post by judy on Feb 1, 2015 0:55:35 GMT
Dr Sarah- you did great! Do your DC have chores or help out at all. Are they old enough to shred papers? They’d probably love to. We used to have to damp wipe the skirting boards when i was a kid for my mum, maybe yours could do that in each week’s ZONE?
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Post by drsarah on Feb 21, 2015 19:10:22 GMT
OK, now I'm about three weeks behind on updating this. Which is pretty symptomatic of my life right now <sigh>. Anyway, here's the update on the last three weeks' worth of tasks, or as much of it as I have time to write before dinner:
2nd Feb: get gifts/cards prepared for the month ahead. No birthdays in February that I needed to buy for, but I took this chance to e-mail my sister & ask what she wanted, as hers is the beginning of March.
3rd Feb: tidy & declutter the pantry. That was a really useful one as our tinned food cupboard needed an overhaul, so I spent a fair bit of time sorting that out, plus the overflow shelf at the back.
4th Feb: tidy your dumping zone. This is the kind of thing that's always useful, so I hope I did it, but I honestly can't remember what I did!
5th Feb: purge unused/out of date items from the bathroom cupboard. Didn't actually have too much to do here as my bathroom cupboard is one of the few areas I have managed to definitively declutter in the past, and one that doesn't attract too much incoming clutter once it is under control (at least not in this house - I'm just not one for buying a lot of products) so I only found one or two things to chuck out, so that was kind of a gimme.
6th Feb: spend 15 minutes tidying the messiest room in the house. Oh, boy! Always a good one. Had to be the children's room - actually, the messiest room is my bedroom, but that's largely because of the stacks of stuff that really need a skip, so until I get round to hiring one there's not much I can do about that, and my husband doesn't want to hire one till the weather's warmer. So, the children's room it was. 15 minutes in there was definitely time well spent, though something of a drop in the bucket. But a drop's better than nothing, right?
9th Feb: create a meal plan based on foods in the pantry. Nope - we always have the same stuff anyway, so I left this one.
10th Feb: tidy and dust all shelves and windowsills in the bathroom/loo. Another fairly quick but useful one for getting a few empty bottles/used toilet rolls chucked out.
11th Feb: pick up/put away all toys lying around. This one was really useful for making a dent in the children's room, which is so messy I've practically given up doing anything with it - it's not just that it's chaos, but that there's far too much stuff in there so there's no place to put a lot of the stuff. Having just one category to focus on - the toys - was actually pretty helpful, because it was a place to start. So that gave me a bit of hope!
12th Feb: vacuum under all rugs. Nope - we only have two, in the living room, which my husband already vacuums under every evening, so that one I could skip.
13th Feb: scrub your dirtiest saucepan/baking tray. I skipped that one!
Dinner's nearly ready - better get back to this later or tomorrow.
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Post by drsarah on Feb 22, 2015 22:01:03 GMT
Continuing: Feb 16th - tidy and declutter your Tupperware cupboard. Again, that one is one I'd need to do as a joint endeavour with DH, so I left it. Feb 17th - tidy your kitchen junk drawer. We don't have one, so that was one job less. I did think about clearing out the one in my study, but I was busy anyway and didn't do it. Feb 18th - tidy that one little thing that has been annoying you recently. Another of those lovely all-purpose ones that's always going to be useful, but unfortunately just didn't have time or energy that day so it didn't get done. Feb 19th - throw out all out-of-date items from the pantry. Didn't we just do the pantry? Anyway, I did the fridge instead - which was actually not too bad, but I did dig out a couple of things that belonged in the bin. Feb 20th - declutter front of fridge. Ours has one of those magnetised shopping list pads with pencil - which obviously we're keeping - DD's name spelled out in the letter magnets that used to come with those Innocent smoothies (a present from someone in her class who left), and a load of the children's certificates for this and that (school achievements, DS's summer reading award) held on with magnets. Had a look but decided I didn't want to get rid of any of it. So, not the most dazzling of weeks for achievements, but then they won't all be, will they? The Organised Housewife has also started up her weekly tasks again - this year they're meant to be about cleaning rather than decluttering, but, as she pointed out, no reason you can't do both, or do decluttering instead. She started with the entryway, which would have been a good thing to declutter if I'd had more time, but I didn't so I just concentrated on tidying the stairs. Which did need it, so at least that was useful. Tomorrow's task is going to be cleaning three windows. Can't even remember where the window cleaning stuff is! Think I might give that one a miss. |
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I don't seem to have had an e-mail through with the task, but she posts them on her Facebook page as well and apparently today's was to change the answerphone message. We just have the standard electronic recorded one and I'm happy with that so I'm going to leave it, so I'm starting out by deciding not to do the very first task. 
