Resolutions Part 4

Household Goals

This can be a pretty broad topic, but I am making a list of all household related tasks that I wish to accomplish in 2011. These are basically tasks that I tackle every year, but making a list that I can check off inspires me!

Laura over at OrgJunkie.com is hosting a weekly organizing assignment. I just discovered this, and I plan to look at the past assignments as well as check in weekly to see her ideas. I will try to participate in this as my time allows.

My plan is to make a list of everything I can think of that needs to be done in my house.

• deep cleaning (refrigerators, windows, garage)
• small organization tasks (drawers, shelves, pantry clean-out)
• huge undertakings (the secret room--an unfinished storage area off of Olivia's room that needs a major, major clean out and organization)
• seasonal items (kids' closets and drawers as the seasons change)
• outdoor items (flower beds)

I am making my list using Teux Deux. I like this program, because I can update it on my phone or on my laptop. I love seeing the items crossed off! And I don't have a million little bits of paper all over the place. I am listing all of the household jobs under the Someday category. You can even make sublists in the Someday area of Tuex Deux.

Secondly, I am planning time to actually do the work! Some of the tasks can be worked on daily or a few times a week in 15 minute increments. You don't have to wait for a whole afternoon free to clean out one drawer. Just set your timer for 15 minutes and get busy. Stop at the end of 15 minutes and finish up the next time you have 15 minutes to spare.

Some of these tasks will require one or more hours to do. I will either break those down into work on it for one hour a week, or I will pick a day once a month or so and just spend the whole day getting it done. During our Spring Break we usually tackle outside work, and so I will get the majority of the windows, garage and flower beds done during this week. I will need to plan on garage and flower maintenance for the rest of the spring and summer.

One job that I am really dreading is cleaning out that secret room. When I finally get that accomplished I will share before and after pictures.

For February my list includes:

• clean out all three refrigerators
• clean out and organize the contents of my freezers
• clean out my nightstand drawers (2)

By spreading out the jobs over the whole year instead of trying to do them all in one weekend or month, I think that organizing and maintaining your home is doable and can even be enjoyable.