I Lied.

In my last post, I said I was moving on (finally!) from writing about decluttering, to give more attention to the neglected aspects of my project. For the last few weeks, I’ve been feeling smug because it’s been much easier to keep the house neat. There’s a lot less stuff in the house in general, which makes it easier to find homes for things we need, and in turn, those things aren’t strewn about the house. Since I pared down my wardrobe, putting away my clean laundry is faster. Meal planning has been paying off. I even tossed $10 in Kohl’s cash (which I really should have passed to a friend) because I decided I didn’t need or want anything.

Last weekend, instead of alternating between purging clutter and staring at it in frustration,  I was able to pull out my sewing machine, and finished a couple pillows. It’s not a stretch to say I’ve been feeling damned pleased with myself.

So, as a consequence, it’s been easy to forget I still have to deal with this:junk1

And this:junk3

And this:junk2

My affection for throwing stuff in baskets to deal with later is coming back to bite me. My recent focus on maintaining the house has made it easy to forget other things I need to deal with. Each day, after school, I go around to the assorted flat surfaces and put things away, and repeat the process before bed. It only take a few minutes. But last night, I caught a glimpse of one of those Baskets of Crap and was like, “oh yeah, you.” Doing a quick sweep of the house takes very little time, but by the end of each day I haven’t had the fortitude to deal with even one of these.

I’m still planning to bake this weekend, but I’m going to do deal with these contained little messes too.


4 Responses to I Lied.

  1. I have the exact same problem with boxes and baskets! I collected all the baskets from around the house and stored them up in the attic, to force myself to deal with such jetsom and flotsam.

  2. See I don’t have catchalls to collect items on surfaces – so instead I find myself wearing a path between rooms as a repeatedly take things to their rightful home! Even as I do it, I think ‘if you were to just use a washing basket’ but alas I don’t. I suppose it’s incidental exercise.

    I do however a ‘in tray’ in the kitchen which is the catchall for paperwork – and things can be there for a year if I feel there’s no better place but I need to keep it for the future. I periodically thin things (ie receipts into their rightful envelopes, typed into spreadsheets or binned). And a filing pile in the study, on the shelf, where I periodically hole punch and file in one of our four binders. So paper – I have a system. It’s the strewn clothes and knick knacks (bobby pins, earrings etc) that I haven’t corralled just right yet. And the damn kitchen benches and my annoying desire to hand wash all plastic but a general laziness to do it so infrequently!

  3. Well, I think you *should* feel pleased with yourself! You’ve been seeing the good outcome of all your hard work 🙂 Sure there will always be things still to deal with and I’m sure you will get finished with these particular baskets but before you tell yourself off for still having some messy bits take a look around and be glad of where you’ve got to!

  4. Maybe just grab the top thing off a basket and deal with it. If it inspires you to keep going awesome if not it is still one thing dealt with. One day the basket will be empty.

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