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Post by trixare4kids on Jun 23, 2008 21:23:08 GMT -5
I found the old site awhile back and read through some stuff but never posted or anything like that. I'm 39, female, single -- I live alone with my two dogs.
The thing about me is that when I comes to keeping the kitchen clean and doing basic cleaning like vacuuming, dusting, cleaning the bathroom, that sort of thing, I'm pretty okay. I actually like that kind of cleaning. I like the washing dishes, cleaning the toilet, scrubbing the sink kind of work. Sometimes I let my kitchen or living room to get to a 2 or so and then get with and make myself clean it up.
I used to let my kitchen get to REALLY bad level 2.9 or so, but about 6 months ago I figured out WHY it was getting so messy in the first place -- and I figured it out by reading something from a link on here about "finishing what you start." This is going to sound so stupid, I'm sure, but it's the little things. I realized that when I took the trash out on Sunday nights, I would often forget to put a new bag in the trash can. I have one of those pedal type cans so the dogs don't get into the trash. So all week instead of putting the trash in the can, I'd leave it around on the counters simply because I hadn't put a bag in the can yet. Since the counters were so messy and overwhelming, I'd stop doing dishes too. Then on Saturday I'd spend an entire hour or two or more having to clean the kitchen from the week or two weeks before. Dumb, huh? Anyway, the "finish what you start" idea was a lightbulb moment for me. So now, when I take out the bag on Sunday, I replace the bag BEFORE I take the trash to the curb. See, in my head, taking the trash to the curb was the end of the chore and I wouldn't bother to replace the bag. So now, taking the trash to the curb is still the end of the chore, but I put the bag in before that. Problem solved! So now my kitchen is pretty *** clean most of the time. I can quickly tidy it every day in just a few minutes So I guess I am making progress.
I have to play GAMES with myself in order to do cleaning and that keeps me at level 1 or 2 mostly at all times (except the bedroom and papers).
a. I set the timer for 15 minutes and work as fast as I can in one room and then I'm done if I want to be. I can then go do whatever I want, guilt free. If I feel I can do more, I set the timer again and work in another room. This works great for everything except laundry and papers and often times once I get going, I finish cleaning the house (except the bedroom and papers).
b. I pretend someone is coming over in 30 minutes and make it as presentable as possible in that amount of time.
c. I don't get to watch tv, be on the internet, read or anything else until project xyz is done.
My main big issues are: Clothing and papers.
Clothing: I'm at a pretty much constant level 3 with clothing. I confine it to my bedroom so my bedroom is always in bad shape. I can make myself clean everything -- I just have a hard time making myself do laundry. Or I do the one load I desperately need and let the load sit on top of the dryer until I use what's there. I'm never, ever completely done with laundry and there are always big piles around.
Papers: They just accumulate in piles and I tend to hide them in the cabinet - out of sight out of mind kind of thing. Half the time I can't see my table for the piles of papers on it. I just can't seem to get a good system going for filing the papers I need to keep and tossing what I don't need. It just always seems to add up so fast! So every once in awhile I clean off the table -- and stick the piles in a cabinet or box. Ugh.
I finally helped myself in the regard by going through the mail before I bring it in the house and so I don't even bring in junk mail and catalogs into the house in the first place. It has helped a lot, but it still adds up. Bills, statements, netflix envelopes, receipts, magazines I want to read, etc etc. I can pay my bills on time but I just have all this extra stuff lying around. I'm not sure what I'm going to need or how long I should keep something and I get stressed just LOOKING at the piles of papers and then go do something else.
So here are my questions:
1. In my readings here I've heard mention of challenges. I'm thinking a 10 or 15 minute "papers challenge" would help get me motivated. Or a laundry day challenge or something like that. Do people do the challenges together or are the individual things? I think if other people were doing it at the same time and then reporting back, I would find that kinda fun and motivating.
2. I keep hearing reference to listzilla. What/where is that?
3. How, in general, do you motivate yourself do do the tasks that you hate/are avoiding/seem overwhelming? Papers and laundry make me feel overwhelmed and I'll do just about anything to avoid doing them. When I decide to clean my house if I think "I'll start with laundry or papers" -- I find myself not dong ANYTHING at all, so I leave it for last. Where last = never.
4. I had those insights about not bringing the junkmail in the house in the first place and replacing the freaking garbage can bag -- both of which helped me immensely -- how do I go about finding some "lightbulb" idea that will help me with laundry and papers? How do I figure how WHY its getting this way in the first place. I feel like if I can figure that out (but how?) I will get better. Or at least that's what I'm hoping.
Thanks for any advice/help. I've done a bunch of reading here and I'm very impressed with how supportive, creative, friendly, warm and non-judgmental this community of folks are with each other.
Thanks for listening.
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Post by eagle on Jun 24, 2008 6:44:03 GMT -5
Welcome, trixare4kids. If you look at your screen just below the advertising and above the blue line at the top of the post, you'll see this: Stepping out of Squalor :: General :: General Board :: Newbie needs some advice & has questions. Click on the word :: General:: and it will take you to the Home menu of SOS. From there you can navigate to the different forums on the board. Here's a short cut: takeonestepatatime.proboards80.com/index.cgi?This is the one I have bookmarked and where I start at SOS. You will see ListZilla and Byways listed on that page. I also had a problem with laundry until a few years ago, when I set into motion a new habit. My habit is one load of laundry per day. The way it started was to link a habit I wanted to develop with a habit I already had. So I linked it to getting up in the morning. The first thing I did after going to the bathroom, was to grab a load of dirty laundry & walk it to the washing machine & start the washer. If the washer was full, which it usually was, I removed the wet laundry from the washer & put it in the dryer. By starting a load every morning when I got up, I began to develop a daily laundry habit. In the beginning, I often forgot to follow through with the drying and putting away until the next morning. But that doesn't matter, because the next morning I was again reminded and managed to complete the task anyway. Eventually, the habit became second nature and so easy to complete with the follow-through, that I barely think about it anymore. I do list it on ListZilla, though, because it is part of maintenance, and I want to remind myself that I am doing what needs to be done to maintain a habit that took me so long to develop. |
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Post by angelinahedgehog on Jun 24, 2008 6:55:52 GMT -5
1. To expand a bit on the challenges, there are two types. The first type is the one KKL mentioned: 15 minute challenges that happen in the chat room.
The second is a more general call on the boards: you may see someone calling for a laundry challenge weekend or a visual difference weekend or something similar. These are generally challenges that run from a few days to a few weeks, although you work at your own pace during those times.
In both, the basic idea is the same. You go off to do something, a like-minded group of people also go off to do something, and you return to get and give congratulations.
2. What KKL said. Listzilla is a board of todo lists. There are several different styles, so take a look at a few threads for a day and join one, or start your own. Or not. Listzilla participation is not required.
3. One of the phrases that you are likely to see on these boards is "Motivation follows action". Or, as the old Nike commercial says: Just do it.
That can be daunting, I know. And you've already got a few of the tricks that often help: giving yourself permission to stop before the job is anywhere near fully done is remarkably freeing.
When you say that you'll tell yourself that you'll start with laundry, what does that mean to you? Does that mean gather and sort and pretreat and wash and dry and fold and iron and put away? And how many loads are you thinking you'll do? All of them?
What can you streamline? Once the laundry is washed, it needs to dry or it will sour, but beyond that, what is the minimum you can do without causing yourself more work later?
4. The only way I know of to encourage those lightbulb moments is to pay attention. When you do a task, pay attention to what you're thinking and feeling at every step of the way. Is there a step that makes you cringe? What about that step do you dislike?
I don't particularly like sorting laundry. If I'm faced with a pile of dirty unsorted clothes, I will drag my feet. There are two possible ways around this: wash everything together, or sort in small batches.
I would prefer not to have white towel lint on my black slacks, so sorting is needed. And to sort a bit at a time, I use multiple hampers. Whites go into one area, colors into another, and handwashables go into a third area. I check pockets at that point, and I treat stains as I see them (and since I'm sorting every day, the stains are usually pretty fresh). Then, when I'm ready to wash some clothes, all I need to do is transfer the laundry to the washer, start the cycle, add detergent and presto! A load in the wash.
The problem area may not even be something you would associate with the task at hand. If your closets are already packed with clothes, then there's no incentive to do a load fully, because there's no room to put stuff away. You may find that purging the closet does wonders for your ability to keep up with the laundry.
(Oh, by the way... One is never really caught up with the laundry. Unless you're a nudist who sleeps on the bare floor, there's always going to be more clothes to wash.)
Of course, the problem with this method is that you actually have to do the task you dislike.
You can try thinking your way through some of it:
"If I were faced with item X (laundry, mail, refrigerator)
in condition Y (clean and dry, still in envelopes, stuffed to the gills)
and the next step was Z (fold, open, discard food past its best-by date),
how would I feel?"
That would be starting point. But I suspect that you would still need to do the task and pay attention as you're doing it.
Some things defy easy analysis. I struggled with a bad habit of bringing groceries in and leaving the nonperishables in bags on the floor. I tried keeping the kitchen table clear, and it just wasn't working. The table would eventually get covered, and the bags would go on the floor again.
Then I discovered, by accident, that if a certain section of the countertop was clear, I wouldn't even look at the table when bringing in groceries. I was putting stuff on the table only because there was no room on the counter. It was amazing. And it was a heck of a lot easier to keep that section of the countertop clear than it was to keep the table clear. Problem solved, in a way that was easier than I had thought it would be.
Cheers!
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Post by ramatama on Jun 24, 2008 7:08:10 GMT -5
first of all  and welcome! I too play tricks and games with myself. some of which must be in some post here from when we first "moved" to this site. Let me share with you what I did/ I do: As to the clothes, i was setting a terrible example to my DD and i had to change it prontoand so i used the principle of establishing a new habit, which says you have to do it consistently for at least 3 weeks every day, only one day is permitted to be a "slide" once you don't do it two days in a row you have to start counting all over again. You set aside a reward for when you have completed the three weeks. For people with ADHD it is 4 weeks. I asked my own daughter, who was 7 at the time, to monitor me, the same way i was giving her stars for feeding her pets, making her beds. She got to give me stickers. After those 4 weeks i had a "routine" of putting away the clothes i had worn either to laundry or in closet. I now had embedded a "routine". into my day, i did it without thinking, like brushing teeth. I bought smallish hampers, to coincide with the size of what one load would be. As soon as any hamper for hot, medium or cool or whites or coloured is full, it signals "do load" to me. Here too, my DD was permitted to point this out to me. Since you live alone, maybe you can train your dogs to let you know... ( just teasing!   ) Papers: oh my, yes, we are similar...and i have a DH just like you too. we not only have the papers that have to do with our jobs and regular household stuff, but also all the papers that have to do with our NGO activities, and these are manifold! I will put all the unsorted papers in a box and then put out scrap paper out and as i pull out each paper from the box i will label the top of the scrap paper with what it is i.e: "finance info", "new technology info", "products to look up", "book reviews", "articles for others"(am trying to stop doing this) " NGO1", "NGO2", "follow up leads", "data to enter into PC", "to read later"( i have a lot of these= i put these into a "take with me" bag) and so on...you get the idea. I tend to use our guest bed to do this sorting. I do it in 15 to 30 min blocks, and sometimes i will do this while listening to a podcast. But i have also used the floor, or our dining room table to sort. The already sorted papers get put into temp files ( that can be dangerous! don't follow my lead here if you can, put in proper place right away!) and then eventually into the filing cabinets...(which reminds me i should do some decluttering there... :  let us know from time to time how you are doing and what worked for you.  |
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Post by canna on Jun 24, 2008 7:34:25 GMT -5
Trixare4kids
Like that name.
I sometimes have a hard time getting rid of the paper piles which accumulate on the coffee table. So i have a rule of every evening sit there and take a bunch and look through them. My cardboard recycle box at the side. The papers/magazines go right into that recycle box and right then, downstairs into the large recycle bin in the garage. Gone. A little each day helps.
I had a big problem with boxes and boxes of stuff in the closet. My way of dealing with these boxes was to take them OUT of the closet and take them into the living room. Just a few at a time, and never sort through them IN THE Closet. It sounds wierd, but for me looking at stuff, "somewhere else" helps. Seems you can look at the stuff differently if its somewhere else. I'm able to sort faster and discard stuff; trash, donate give away.
I also did this with packed drawers in my dining room buffet. Just took the full drawers into the bathroom!! and dumped them out on the little carpet. Got rid of lots more than if I just looked at this stuff in the dining room - would just shut the drawer and walk away. Wierd.
Good luck with your sorting.
My difficulty is getting around to vacuuming the stairs. I just hate to do that, and theysure need it. ICK.
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Post by BDG on Jun 24, 2008 11:02:25 GMT -5
Welcome to a wonderful website. I'm still fighting the paper jungle myself so I have very little insight there myself. The one thing I have done is have all of my bills automatically taken out of my checking account so that nothing is late and I don't have to worry about it. I did this slowly over a period of a year or more, but eventually got there, so I have no more long hours looking for a bill or an address or a stamp.
I also purchased some baskets with lids, old picnic baskets from thrift stores to put on the table, one holds mail and the other holds telephone books. When it piles up I always try and throw away the obvious things like junk mail.
As for laundry I try and wash one load a day. I also throw things away that are torn or stained and I try and keep my good things hung up in the closet. I also threw away all of my old towels and purchased seven better quality thick towels all in white, since I bleach all of my whites, we also will reuse our towels at least once by hanging them up and letting them dry. Hubby throws away all of his socks on occassion whenever he buys new ones and that way I don't have baskets of old socks to sort.
I also threw away the tons of worn out sheets I had and just purchased two sets for each bed. I saved the bags that all of my bedspreads came in and store all of my clean blankets in those after washing them.
By tossing the things I don't wear and don't need I cut my laundry chores in half and soon had room in my closet and bureau drawers for what I do wear. I purchased two large plastic bins to store winter and summer clothes in, that way they are clean and not in my way between seasons. I find that once I emptied the drawers of stuff I was not using I did not mind putting my clothing away as much. Also, I put a hamper in the bathroom and bedroom, since I tend to change clothes in both rooms and I am not good at walking all the way to another room to put them in the hamper. Good Luck, look at your habits and work around those to build a system that works for you.
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Post by trixare4kids on Jun 25, 2008 20:39:20 GMT -5
Wow! You guys are truly awesome. Thank you so much for support and really constructive advice.  I think the challenges in the chat room will help me a lot. I think I might plan a weekend laundry challenge! And 10 minute paper challenges too. Though not at the same time. I've been reading and re-reading all the great hints and tips and I think they are going to help me get going in the right direction. |
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Post by messysue on Jun 26, 2008 10:29:44 GMT -5
Welcome to the Board!!
It's all about routines, baby steps, etc. etc.
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