Getting Organized

  I am not what anybody would really call organized.  Growing up, my room was always a mess disaster area.  My parents were always after me to clean up.  I would spend hours in my room, going through piles of old school papers and books and get distracted as I went.  I wound up reading old assignments from years before or reading whole books and getting absolutely NO cleaning done.

  Household chores were only slightly better.  I hated washing dishes (probably because the dishwasher was broken throughout my childhood), and drying them was only passably better.  (Vacuuming, however, was always a fun task.)  Laundry wasn't horrible, but I wouldn't get around to it until I had nothing clean left to wear and once it was washed, you could forget me actually folding it.

  So clutter, mess, and disorganization was my life through grade school, college, and into married life.  I had a great admiration for people with beautifully clean homes, and wondered why I wasn't one of them.  I was ashamed of the state of my room/house and always wanted to be better.  I'd start cleaning, but the effort to keep it clean only lasted for a week or two.  I would buy books about cleaning, organizing, and decluttering, but never would follow-through.

  I did learn a lot about myself, though.  I learned that just because I was a Girl Scout and "Be prepared," was a great motto, it didn't mean I had to keep anything I might possibly ever have a use for in the future.  It is okay to throw things away and let it go.  I learned to fight the perfectionist inside my head that would say, "There's too much.  You'll never get done, so don't even start.  You don't have the time to finish it right now," when I looked at a messy area instead of just spending 10 or 15 minutes doing what I could and eventually getting it clean a little bit at a time.

  It's still an uphill battle.  I fight the urge to buy all the cute organizational supplies, because right now it would be a waste of money because I would never use them.  It would just be more clutter.  A few weeks ago, I restarted the Flylady system for maybe the 6th time.  This time, I'm not being so strict.  I'm adapting it to fit my life a little better.  I know what doesn't work, so I'm just trying to build habits that do work.  I've printed out some chore charts to keep me (and the hubby) better on track.  Eventually I'd love to make them all pretty and laminate it so we could mark with dry-erase marker instead of me having to print a new one each week, but that's the perfectionist in me.  If I waited til then to do it, it would never get done.  This way, my house is getting cleaner and my life more organized little by little until I have time to make it pretty.

  So for right now, you're not going to be seeing any pictures of my house.  It's not gonna happen.  But after a while longer, I hope to be able to show you things that are working for me, and explain a little better about how I got to that point.  In the mean time, why don't you share with me some of your tips.  What works for you?