Last week, I shared with you my (maybe crazy?) idea that I (we!) can baby step our way into order and serenity at home with once-a-week 20-minute decluttering and organizing sessions.
Only I’m calling them “missions” because #alliteration.
I love to declutter; I love to organize. It’s my happy place. And yet, my home gets “out of control” just like anyone else’s does.
And if your happy place isn’t quite as geeky as mine, then I suspect that you struggle with that “out of control” feeling as much – or even more – as I do.
Now some people just have a super high tolerance for disorder. More power to you! Seriously. I envy you.
Unfortunately, as I’ve written about before, I’m probably more sensitive to disorder at home than the average bear.
[My self-diagnosed theory is that clutter/disorder is a form of sensory overload for me. It affects my mood, my parenting, my work…. I even find that my eating is less healthy and my sleep is less restorative when my home is in a disordered state.]
But beyond making some of us grumpier than we would normally be, a disordered home can negatively impact our lives in many other ways. The classic example is how often we spend (aka waste) time looking for our keys, our purse or our important papers because we don’t have a good system for corralling them.
But that kind of disorder-leads-to-dysfunction happens in lots of other ways.
For example, when your spice cabinet is a mess, cooking can take longer and be less pleasurable. I mean, if you can’t find the oregano, it’s not just annoying, it slows you down. And hey – if you can’t find the right spice, then maybe you’ll just give up and dump in some extra salt. (Health!)
Maybe this seems far-fetched, but I will tell you that the older I get, the more I realize that external order begets internal order – and the opposite, unfortunately, is also true.
So that’s my big WHY behind these missions. But hey, you don’t always need a big “why”. You can just want things to be tidier!
Either way, once a week, I want to challenge myself – and those of you who want to join me – to spend 20 minutes (this is not supposed to be a major undertaking!) decluttering, organizing and containerizing one small space in our home.
This is not a change-your-life-in-three-days approach. This is more slow-and-steady-wins-the-race. I figure there are about 40 weeks left in 2019, after we skip the weeks of the Jewish holidays (since we’ve already got enough on our to-do lists those weeks!).
Forty is a lot of weeks! Even when we’re just spending 20 minutes.
In order to get us all on the same proverbial page, I’ve put together a schedule for the next 18 weeks and I’d love to invite you to join me. Since Pesach is coming (I mean, not immediately, but you know, it’s on the horizon!), I’m focusing our first several missions on areas in the kitchen. You’re welcome.
- Week of February 11 – Spice Cabinet
- Week of February 18 – Tupperware Drawer
- Week of February 25 – Under the kitchen sink
- Week of March 4 – Refrigerator
- Week of March 11 – Freezer / deep freezer
- Week of March 18 – No mission (Happy Purim!)
- Week of March 25 – Pantry (one shelf or area is fine!)
- Week of April 1 – Kitchen junk drawer
- Week of April 8 – Kitchen / island counter
- Week of April 15 – No mission (Happy Pesach!)
- Week of April 22 – No mission (Happy Pesach!)
- Week of April 29 – Linen closet
- Week of May 6 – No mission (Happy Yom Ha’Atzamaut!)
- Week of May 13 – Guest or kids’ bathroom
- Week of May 20 – Master bathroom
- Week of May 27 – Coat closet / entryway
- Week of June 3 – Kids’ bedroom closet
- Week of June 10 – No mission (Happy Shavuot!)
If you’re interested in joining along – and I hope you are! – you can sign up for the email below list, and I’ll be sure to send you a friendly reminder and some before & after shots of my own progress each week.
And if you want to share your own accomplishments (do it, do it!) on Facebook or IG, be sure to hashtag them #20minutemissions, so we can all find them!
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