Friday Playdate » Blog Archive » in more interesting news, I’m growing my hair out

Last night, while the kids were getting in their pajamas, I was digging through the ~~pile of crap~~ assortment of things that have accumulated next to the bed, trying to find the book Charlie and I have been reading. I have a little old fashioned book table that we use for the lamp and the alarm clock and whatever we’re reading; it has a neat little v-shaped shelf in the bottom so that you can stand your books up and see the titles. This shelf was jammed full of books no one has read in oh I don’t know how long; the space under the table was piled high with Lucky magazines going back months and picture books the kids had dragged into our room on various nights.

It was a mess.

I started sorting everything into piles, based on where it was actually supposed to live: playroom, office, my neighbor’s house, the giveaway bag. Eventually I found Charlie’s book, but first I found a signed copy of Donna Smallin’s The One Minute Organizer Plain & Simple. I have no idea where I got it, or why my copy is signed, but I started reading it, right there, sitting in the half-sorted piles while the kids were running up and down the hall.

(Which gives you a little insight into my current organizational dilemmas, yes?)

Smallin breaks organizing down into very basic tasks: sorting your sock drawer, clearing the kitchen counter, emptying one drawer in the bathroom. She suggests making organizing a daily task, but she also suggests keeping the time you spend organizing to under 15 minutes a day, if possible.

And she also suggests that you tell someone about your organizing project, in order to make it real. So I’m telling you, Internet! I am going to get organized! One drawer at a time.

Tonight I cleaned out the cabinet under the sink on my side of the bathroom. I threw away the deodorant that smells like candy and the two almost-empty lotion bottles and the glasses case that I have always hated. I found my self-tanner in the back of the cabinet, which is great because I wore a skirt today without tights and I think I blinded a couple of people at Starbucks this morning (so sorry you all). I found a bag of 300 cotton balls, which was funny because I just bought a new bag of 300 cotton balls yesterday because we were out of cotton balls. I found a can of volumizing mousse, thank god, because I’m serious about growing my hair out and right now I look like a mushroom with really pale legs.

I have a long list of Things I Want to Organize (the playroom, the laundry, the piles of I don’t know what all on the bar, my laptop) but when I think about that list I get tired and give up. I also tend to over think individual things, like that Stila eye shadow that turned out to be blue, not gray, and that never really worked because I wanted gray not blue, and I paid EIGHTEEN WHOLE DOLLARS for that eye shadow, and it’s STILA for god’s sake, what’s not to LIKE? other than the color, of course, which is all wrong.

That kind of attitude makes it hard to get rid of the clutter, you know. I mean, what if I decide after I toss that eye shadow that I really liked it? Even though I’ve had it in my makeup bag for I don’t know how long and have never liked it, at all, and every time I look at it I kick myself for buying it in the first place.

(I just got up and threw the eye shadow in the trash. Go me.)

Tomorrow I’m going to get all the laundry out of my bedroom. I might even put the kids’ clothes away in their rooms! Although I wouldn’t want to overdo on day two, so I’ll probably just pile their stuff on the chairs in their rooms. Baby steps, people, baby steps.

19 Comments so far

You are seriously motivating to me. Must clear off the table now!

this is quite geeky and ocd but i have to say…i color code. i color code my shirts, jackets, sweaters, books. because if i do..it’s a lot easier for me to remember to put things away and to be organized.

and yes, totally compulsive!

Please consider Freecycle or Craigslist before you throw out too much usable stuff in the landfill. I know make-up shouldn’t be given away, but whenever someone embarks on a decluttering mission I hate to see usable stuff cluttering our landfills.

There’s a website called flylady.com that follows this same sort of concept. (15 minutes a day in your hot spots) She also maps out a schedule for cleaning your house by room. I follow it quite loosely, but have found her theory true -once you follow it for a while, you have less & less to do each time and find yourself with time for ‘projects’ like sorting closets, etc…Good stuff. Good luck!!!

It’s like you are IN my house! Cleaned out the boy’s room yesterday. All I can say is, “gross, but it’s done!”

Same here … my organizational To Do list is a mile long (which, horribly enough, includes ordering pics from my wedding 4 1/2 years ago) and when I finally began filing a year’s worth of stuff the other night, I came across a box of to-be-filed FROM THE YEAR BEFORE that was never dealt with. Ugh.

And, like you, everyone thinks I’m so organized. It’s all surface, dearies. So best of luck! And I’m going to check out that flylady site…

I promise- inside me is an organized person just screaming writhing to get out, but is encased in this Great Procrastinator that is. I will try this- 15 min at a time thing. Thanks!

Go you! I started this before Christmas and got about 4 drawers done which was VERY satisfying. I haven’t done any since then, though, so maybe this will help kick-start me!

yay you!
One Minute Manager. That’s the original book—-which I hadn’t heard of in years, yet it was mentioned yesterday afternoon in a phonecall I was on. weird. The Secret in action. (insert creepy music.)
xoxo steph

WAIT! Did you buy the eyeshadow at Sephora? Because if you take it back and tell them the color is wrong for you and you’d like to exchange it, they’ll let you. Even without a receipt. So, don’t give up hope and get back to that trash can. This is why I love Sephora and why I sob every time I remember we have now moved a city with NO SEPHORA. Techinically there’s not one in the whole state! Blasphemy.

Argh. I meant technically.

Totally with you on the baby steps! Just recently started 10 minutes a day of organizing and this has brought on a few trips to the container store (they has EVERY organizing solution). It feels great to be clutter free so keep at it.

There’s also a swap area on makeupalley.com. You trade the cosmetics, lotions, etc. that you don’t want with someone else for what they don’t want. I’ve never swapped anything (fear of cooties) but I love the concept.

This is so funny, because just yesterday I had some sort of minor internal breakdown when I opened the closet door in my girls’ nursery and became totally overwhelmed by the unorganized cubbies and bins and boxes of hand-me-down shoes and outgrown baby blankets and changing table coverings and Easter dresses and old Halloween costumes. Seriously, I started to doubt my ability to be a stay-at-home mom: if organizing hand-me-downs causes me this much stress?

Although it may have had something to do with the fact that I had only gotten 4 hours of sleep during each of the previous 2 nights. That’s never good for one’s organizational skills.

Good luck, Susan! (p.s.–I keep meaning to write you to thank you for the constant inspiration; I just started a new writing job for a newly-launched women’s website called PriorityMe.com, and I feel I owe it all to you, in a way, with your model of how to combine work-at-home endeavors with motherhood. So thanks!)

This sounds suspiciously like flylady to me. 15 minutes? babysteps? you’ll be crying in a minute and calling it ‘purple puddles’ and prancing around to uplifting music with lyrics about cleaning your bathroom.

(it works, too. I mean, not the music, or the puddles, but the system)

Things that made me laugh out loud in this post:
cotton ball thing
mushroom thing
“go me” thing
So thank you very much. Also I love “when my kids were getting into their pajamas” which has become my own private joke with myself. I tell them to go get their jammies on and that’s always when I find myself starting some project, totally inappropriately, timing-wise. But honestly it does take them SO long to get their pajamas on. Am I just supposed to twiddle my thumbs?

I’m growing my hair out too - do you think we can make it until July?
Don’t even get me started on the under the sink situation.

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Just a note to anyone who is organizing/Spring Cleaning. If you have nice clothes, makeup, hair products, etc. that can be used - PLEASE contact your local woman’s shelter and see if they need them. The women there often flee with nothing but the clothes on their back and most shelters will take donations, especially if they are items that can help the women on interviews or court appearances. Remember that these women also often flee with their children so give them a call before getting rid of the kids clothes that have become too small!
Thank you!!!

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