I Procrastinate

It's been a few weeks of trying to get my house in order.  While a daunting task, I am slowly succeeding.  I have come up with a few things that help me.  Maybe they'll help others too, faced with trying to organize a house with next to no motivation.

1.  I downloaded a program called "iProcrastinate" from the Mac App store.  You could use anything really.  A date book would work or a spreadsheet but for me, this seems to be a good thing.  I enter tasks under a subject called "House Cleanup" and then enter steps if there are any.  You set a date for when you want this job completed and if you don't, you see "Task Overdue".  That "Task Overdue"pisses me off so I make an effort to have the jobs completed in the time I have entered.  One bad thing though is you can always change the date, giving yourself more time to procrastinate.  I've done it, I admit it, but I seem to get more done than not.  Which for me is success.

2.  I approached this job incorrectly at first.  I thought the only way to get this done was to concentrate on a room at a time.  My plans to completely clean out one large room usually ended in frustration.  It can be overwhelming to clean a whole room out that has accumulated years of junk, especially when there could be three peoples junk.  Now, I plan an area.  One day it was the desk in the living room.  That same day, I cleaned out one kitchen cabinet.  Later, the linen closet.  Everything gets done, just not all at once.  It took me three days to clean out the kitchen, but it got done and I didn't get bored or overwhelmed.

3.  Lastly, I think it's helpful if you can get rid of the junk as soon as possible.  For me, that will be hard as I can't lift anything overly heavy and will need to rely on someone to help me.  But some things have been easy to get rid off.  I had about seven items I had collected that were no good to me, but still in good shape.  I posted it all on Freecycle and it was gone in a few days.    I think this is important because junk collecting in one spot, for me anyway, is again, overwhelming.  Garbage goes right in the garage.  Freecycle items go in a huge Rubbermaid container that I leave in the hallway.  As I find stuff, it goes in it's area.  As soon as I have six items for Freecycle, I post it.

Well, back to it.  I am off to clean out the laundry room cabinet.  One thing at a time.