The Good Housewife: 8 Week Challenge

Well the time has come. I have to admit, I'm a bit nervous about this. Part of the reason why I decided to blog it was because I will be more accountable than just making a promise to myself. I also feel that I will be more organized this way not trying to do everything in one day and outlining my goals make things easier for me to accomplish. I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner I really think spreading out the organization my entire home over a length of time and creating a realistic upkeep schedule will really help me become a bonafide housewife!

After some research, I found a few sites to use as reference and help me stay get started and figure out a plan of attack. There are hundreds of sites on the matters of organization and de-cluttering by the way, it wasn't hard to find.

THE CHALLENGE

Basically there are four things I need to do de-clutter, organize, clean and maintain. I've decided that a weekly challenge is way easier for me than a daily one. There are truly days I barely have time to use the restroom. So, every week for 8 weeks I will blog about my progress, talk about experiences, show before and after pictures, and present next week's plan.  

1) DE-CLUTTER

I have a few problem areas in my home. I will say that over the last few months I've pack up some of my personal items planning to move and I've already collected a bunch of things to donate or sell. So, my problems aren't as big as they used to be but I've been at this for a long time.

For me getting rid of clutter means looking at things and asking yourself a few questions.

1) Is it functional? Yes- Have I used it in the last year? No- Is it decorative and matches my motif?
2) Is it broken?
3) Do I have too many or multiple things that have the same function?
4) Can I re-use it? Yes- Will I re-use it immediately?
5) Does it have a home?
6) If its decorative, am I over it?

I can usually make a good decision about what I want to do with it based on those answers. There is also the classic three pile method; Keep, Toss, and Undecided. But, I'm not in a situation where my clutter is overwhelming my home its just not organized and there are things that need to be cleared out to make room for a good organizational process.

I dream of clean has a wonderful post about either selling or donating your goods. I've learned a few great tips there!

2) ORGANIZE

This is something I love to do. I suppose time went out the window after I had my son and I never really made room on my priority list to organize my home or life very well. I used to get very involved and sometimes it would get to be expensive. So, this will be a fun challenge figuring out how to organize things on a strict budget.

Although I love organizing that doesn't mean that I'm totally focused on things these days. So, I found this very helpful,  The Organizing Junky's saying called "process" its a very helpful tool to use when your facing a task that seems to be daunting.

Here are the PROCESS steps:
Plan of attack – plan your project – which area(s) do you want to address – make a list – evaluate present system, what is working, what isn’t working, devise new system – determine budget – develop timeline
Remove items – empty the space completely so you can start from a clean slate – this is much more effective than just shuffling everything around.   Remove then sort & purge
Organize into piles – donate/toss/sell/keep/relocate – sort like with like – purge excess – the more you purge the less you have to find a home.  Your goal is to bring back into your space only what you love and use and can fit into the space you have available.  Purge until it fits!
Containerize – find storage solutions – containers establish limits and boundaries – designate a space for items being kept – consolidate where possible
Evaluate plan – how is your system working for you – are you able to work your system? What needs to be modified? A good system should be easy to maintain
Solve/Simplify any remaining issues.  Address anything that isn’t working for you – revise accordingly
Smile, relax and enjoy your hard work!


3) CLEAN

 So I figure the best way to get things to a state that is the easiest to maintain would be to really give it a throughout cleaning. So, I'm going to be "Spring Cleaning" as I go which is of course cleaning way more than you would normally. Part of spring cleaning is de-cluttering and organizing to a degree so I think this will all work out nicely. I found a very good list by I dream of clean. That I will be basing my chores off of.



4) MAINTAIN

This will be the most challenging part of this whole thing for me. Realizing that I'm not the only one who lives in my space and just because I clean and organize doesn't mean its going to stay that way will be a difficult thing to accept, as silly as it sounds. I think that creating a routine lists that I include on my schedule, for reminders, will be the best way to accomplish this. I need to look around a bit more to find a routine that fits my needs or at least one closer to what is realistic for myself and make adjustments where needed. 


Wish me luck!
xoxo