Lessons We've Learned From a Month of Hard Work (Part 2)

Dear Lissy,
We're in the midst of a two day snowstorm. . .our first real snowfall this winter!  I must admit it was a little sad seeing my sweet snowdrops get buried, but they'll survive, I'm sure.  I wanted to finish up the lessons we've learned from redeeming our time in the afternoons.  We've spent 28 days (give or take) going through room by room and thinning out and re-organizing our belongings.

Working together toward a common goal is good for both a family's esprit de corp and personal happiness
I had no doubt that the three of you would obey and work hard during our blitz month.  I didn't expect you to get so "into" it, though.  The four of us have a real sense of accomplishment and unity after working together for a month.  During the last four weeks, you kids have taken ownership of our home.  You've each had blitz zones in addition to your bedrooms to keep up with each day.  A special bonus?  Dad was inspired by all our hard work and punched out several maintenance projects, too.
We've been happier and more content during a dark, cold, snowless month than we normally are even during the summer.  Having a purpose and a goal and working for it together brightened each of us up tremendously during a difficult time of year.

Take the time to clearly state (or even better, write down) what is expected, and then take the time to look at what each person has accomplished at the end of the day.
"Clean your room" has entirely different meaning to a 14 year old than it does to a 40 year old.  Taking the time to write measurable tasks like "Make the bed", "Empty the trash", and "Place all books neatly in the bookcase" is important.  Always express your expectations clearly and make sure your child understands.
We also all long to share our accomplishments and successes.  When a job isn't followed up, it probably will be done half-heartedly or not at all.  I took the time each day to look at what you'd done, praise you, and give any further instruction on the area that was necessary to finish the job well.  It's important as a home manager to inspect what you expect.


Stuff = Time, Clutter = Procrastination
This came as a big surprise.  It takes a lot of time and effort to keep up with stuff.  It takes far more time both to pick up and to actually clean.  Our entire house can be picked up in just a few minutes now.  I can clean through in about 90 minutes.
Clutter is simply a monument to your procrastination.
"Don't put it down, put it AWAY!" has become our war cry.  Maybe families that don't educate at home don't have as much trouble with this as we do, but when you've got four people in the house all day, every day, it can get messy fast.  Chop up one week of busy schedule, stir in a week of head colds, add in a few sewing, electronics, and lapbooking projects, and you have a recipe for disaster.  Double the recipe if you've got too much stuff to actually put everything away.

Aim for excellence, not perfection
My ultimate goal was to go through every room in the house, get rid of extraneous stuff, and re-organize what remained to reflect how we actually used the room. There are a handful of cupboards and drawers that I set up about five years ago that didn't need to be re-organized, but still need a thinning.  I don't have perfection, but the house is in excellent shape.
I also had to let a lot of deep cleaning and maintenance I would have dearly loved to do go by the wayside.  I would never have met my goal of having the entire house simplified and re-organized if I had added deep cleaning and maintenance projects into the mix.  There will be time for deep cleaning after school and  mud season are over!  Michael J. Fox, and actor of my generation summed it up beautifully when he said: "I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection.  Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business."  You can completely stress yourself and your relationships by insisting on perfection beyond excellence.

There is a difference between easy-simple and bare-simple
A bare home with no curtains, decor, or visible belongings would be very easy to maintain.  We weren't striving to redecorate our home to Danish modern, but to make it more functional and easier to maintain.

• Each room has a purpose or is zoned into areas with a specific purpose.
• We thinned our belongings to reflect what we actually need and use on a regular basis.  If two or more functional items served a similar purpose, we only kept one.
• Our belongings each have a specific home where they should be put away.  If we obtain more, it either has to fit in the designated spot or something else has to go.
• We no longer have overflow storage in baskets, tote bags, Rubbermaid containers, and boxes.  Everything is stored in closets, drawers, and cupboards or placed on shelves or hooks.  Extra items we wanted to keep but don't need for daily living (fabric, books, holiday & seasonal items) are all in labeled totes in the attic.
• I downsized purely decorative items to include mostly those of higher quality or special sentimental value.  
• We have a plan for restoring our home to order on a daily basis as well as a few simple rules to keep it neat as we go.
• Switching to Mrs. F's laundry method allowed us to drastically downsize our wardrobes and streamline our laundry area. 

I still have a few drawers and cabinets to thin out, and we'll blitz the yard and garage later this year, but we've already noticed a huge difference in the spirit of our family.  A well managed home where there's room to learn, play, make a mess, and enjoy each other and friends is a gift.  I hope it's a gift that I will pass down to each of the three of you as you begin your own homes some day.

Much love for all your help and joyful spirit,

Mom

 Love, Momma

Controlling Clutter

Dear Lissy,
Today's letter is about the bane of my existence:  STUFF!  I've got a double hit against me:  I love to sew and I educate at home.  Keeping all of our belongings corralled and our things neat sometimes feels like mission impossible.

Organize your storage areas and allow your living spaces to
be lived in!  Most people get this backwards, wanting a neat
living space and cramming their stuff out of sight.

The goal of organization for me is NOT a pin neat home, but a home where everyone can quickly and easily find what they need or want without my assistance.  It's also important that everyone in the house can consistently return things to their proper place.


As long as I have kids home all day, and a house that's a perpetual construction zone, our home is never going to look like a hotel, or even a magazine.  There will be projects, books, shoes, and papers about.  We live here. That said, Dad and I hate clutter, and we do our best to get things back to their designated homes by the end of the day.

The method I use for storage and organization is Julia Morgenstern's Organized From The Inside Out.  I've gotten a little more than halfway through our house, and hope to finish it up within the year.

Sort:  Gather all like things together.  I'll use my sewing supplies as an example.  I need to collect every scrap of fabric, every bobbin, needle, machine attachment and spool of thread into one location.

Purge:  Get rid of duplicates, things you no longer use or want, and anything that's broken or missing a piece.   I choose to donate anything I purge that's still in good condition, but you can also consign it or have a yard sale.  A note on clothes:  seriously consider how big a wardrobe you really need and have room for.  Most Americans have far more clothes than they need, wear, or have storage for.

Assign a Home:  Now that you've seen the monster in it's entirety, where are you going to store it?  The attic?  A closet?  Underbed storage?  It's best not to spread it out too much.  I have a section of the attic and a cabinet downstairs to store my sewing supplies.


Items that are used daily should be stored within reach of where they are used and should be "one motion" storage, that is, nothing else has to be moved or lifted to get them.

• Place storage where the items are naturally dropped.  Your dad always drops his keys, phone, mail, and loose hardware in a pile on top of the dishwasher.  I stained a wooden tray and put it in that spot and simply ask that he empty the tray when it starts overflowing.
• Seriously consider wall storage for frequently used items.  There are hundreds of solutions from country to modern that utilize wall space and make finding and putting away a snap.  You may remember the antique porcupine wall basket in the bathroom that held all of our hair brushes and combs while you were growing up or the mesh shoe organizer on the wall by the stove that held all of the mittens and hats.
• When you purchase furniture, look for pieces that have storage areas. Something as simple as a small drawer in a coffee table can hold remotes and coasters and get them out of sight.
• Don't forget the space at the top of closets or under the bed.  I kept a pantry in rolling under bed boxes the whole time our bedroom was downstairs. 

Containerize:  This is the single most important step of organization!!!!!!  After you have determined where you are going to store these things, you must divide that area up into smaller, labeled containers or it will never stay neat.  Be sure to write down the sizes you need before you shop for containers.

• We don't have extra money, so most of my hidden organizers are cardboard reinforced with packing tape:  shoe boxes, shipping boxes, even a few cereal or cracker boxes make it into the mix.  
• I've also purchased very inexpensive plastic drawer dividers for general storage in areas that get heavy or daily use like the drawer of kitchen utensils.  
• I prefer shelves with baskets or totes that function as "drawers" to large cupboards or trunks.
• For children's storage, I usually get clear plastic totes or carts with drawers.  Kids aren't gentle enough to keep cardboard from falling apart.  Labels can be thumbnail sized pictures for pre-readers.
• Kids can take care of their own clothes from a very young age if you install a peg rack or hooks at their height.  Get over the "lid on the hamper" fetish.  Husbands and kids will put dirty laundry in open topped hampers, but you'll find laundry on top or beside the hamper if it has a lid.  This is a hang up most women have and you only make yourself irritable.
• Confessions of an Organized Homemaker by Deniece Schofield has hundreds of ideas for family storage from puzzles to Legos to sports equipment.
• Baskets and tote bags are cheap or free at most thrift stores and make great storage for one person's projects or reading.
• If you have a crafter in the family, consider project boxes.  A project box (or basket or tote) holds all of the supplies for only one project.  When that project is complete, the extra supplies are put back into storage, and the tote is re-used for the next project.  Whether the passion is paper, beading, painting, or fabric, this allows for quick pick-up and neat storage in between work sessions.  Every project hits a stage where it is tedious or runs into a snag.  The temptation is to leave it and start a new project rather than working through the unpleasant part.  If you only have room for 2-3 project boxes, you mentally encourage yourself (or a child) to either finish up or discard the project and make room for a new one.  I learned this trick from the ladies in my quilting guild.
• Don't "over containerize" unless you enjoy that level of organization.  It's ok to have all your kitchen utensils floating around in a drawer and take 10 seconds to find what you need. Save the ultra-organization for areas everyone in the family accesses like the office supply drawer or the first aid cabinet.

Equalize:  Take time every day to put everything back where it belongs.  Learning to pick up and clean up as you go is a habit that prevents hours of housework. Teach your kids to pick up one set of toys before they drag out the next set. We called our evening pick-up time "bangerang" when you were little.  We set the timer for 15 minutes right before bedtime and we all (except Dad who'd already worked all day!) ran around like crazy getting everything back where it belonged.

When you have a place for everything, and keep everything in its place the whole family is calmer and runs more smoothly.  I'm disgusted by the amount of stuff we have and keep trying to get rid of more.  Stuff will never bring happiness, and there are people who genuinely need what we never even use.

Loving you, Little One!

Momma