Clutterbug Be Gone

A disorganized household has always been my nemesis. Some of you know exactly what this feels like. I've always envied those moms that are totally together and run their home like a well-oiled machine and everything has its place. I aspire to that sort of greatness. I generally keep things clean, but I am such a clutterbug that it tends to overwhelm me at times. I try to keep up on keeping the kids' rooms fairly organized and other areas that are easily messed up. Every couple of months, I do a clean sweep of various areas of the house to get rid of and sort through clutter.

The areas where I am a repeat offender include the laundry and important papers. It's not that I mind doing laundry, it's just that I can't keep up with it. We're only a family of four, so I couldn't imagine what larger families go through. This is why I know I was done after two children. As much as I'd love another baby, I would drown in the laundry pile alone. I have a basket next to my bed that holds the umpteen thousand single pairs of socks. Once in a blue moon, I dump it onto my bed in hopes of reuniting long lost pairs and do so with some success. This is when I make the executive decision to let go of the singles that have wiled away their final hours alone for far too long. Then as soon as I do that, I usually find their twin. It never fails.

The other area that I am really bad at organizing is our papers. We have a file cabinet that was organized at one time, but is dire need of rearranging. It's amazing how hard I work to keep my files in order when I am on the job, but can't at home to save my life. Now I am trying to bring that anal-retentive nature home so that I might magically get our stuff sorted out. My coffee and kitchen tables have become vortexes that until now I just turned a blind eye too. The other night I got fed up with the mess and just piled every random paper or piece of mail into one pile on the floor. I figured if I could see the wood again, I could start from scratch. When it is all spread out, it's too much for me. When it is in a stack, I can go through each item and discard or keep. It's the ongoing keep pile that I need to actually stick into the file cabinet and get that organized as well. It's a haphazard system that I am trying to perfect, so it's a when I'm really-in-the-mood kind of project.

I found a great website that gives some valuable tips on how to get organized. While I don't plan to use them all, some of them were really useful. Go to http://www.webmd.com/balance/guide/how-to-get-organized. Ever since I was pregnant with my firstborn, I've learned to be content with accomplishing at least one great task a day and working towards the next one another day. Today I finally made a bunch of phone calls to make appointments for the dentist, the car, and such. Now I think I'll tackle the dog hair that has accumulated on the stairs. Maybe I'll make a huge checklist of what I'd like to accomplish and that way I can enjoy the feeling of crossing items off of it. Will keep you posted on my progress.