clean 100%

Clean 100% when you clean.

BH&G 

Finish what you start. Don't clean the whole house but vaccuum and sweep later. or clean (                    ) later because you are too tired now.

A 100% clean house stays cleaner for longer than an 80% or even 90% clean home.

Do you want to know why? Perception. 

When your home is 100% clean every one walks on eggshells. You put your dishes straight into the dishwasher, your husband even puts his clothes in the hamper instead of on the floor.

Visually we see the cleanliness, the order, the time spent on making it clean and everyone does a little bit more out of respect for the cleaner and for trying to preserve it.

When we see little messes around the house, subconsciously we don't feel the need to go that extra step of putting away our dishes, we know we can get to it later. 

So when you clean take the time to do it all, and watch how your family reacts. Try cleaning only 80% next time, see how everyone reacts then. I can't be sure that this will work in every household, I'm not a scientist or anything, but that's how things work around here, and somehow it still surprises me. 

I hope you all have a Fabulous Weekend!

-Jen

2nd tip to getting organized!

Last Friday I talked about the very first step to getting organized.

Today I'd like to talk naturally about the second step to getting organized.

It comes down to reason & motivation

I'm not sure what your reasons or motivations are for getting more organized, but I can tell you why its important to me.

Reason #1

Anxiety. For me personally I don't do well in messy places. I like cleanliness, I like order. I could go to someone elses house that was messy and that would be fine, but its not an environment that I enjoy living in. So...aka your mess doesn't bother me, but my mess bothers me a lot.

When my home is in order, I can better handle obstacles, annoyances, and every day little hiccups. They don't seem so bad. But when my home is a mess, the laundry is dirty and piled up, and things are getting misplaced, then when something "bad" happens it feels like the last straw.

Reason #2


Enjoyment. When our house is in order we get to just enjoy. We can play anywhere, we can be in the moment.  We can feel free to invite over friends and family or a host a play date.

 

Reason #3 


The possibilities. When our home is in order we are free to make plans to do fun things. We are free for play dates, we are free to see grandparents, we are free to go to the park for an impromptu walk and play, we are free to go shopping. All those things go on the back burner when there's house work to do.

Tip #2 to getting organized- Find the reasons and motivations for being organized so that getting and staying organized seems worth it.

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The very first tip to getting organized

Recently I've been told that I'm very organized. By fellow bloggers or readers who read AP2CH.

If you asked my mum if I was organized, she would probably love to tell you how messy I was growing up. My room kind of always looked like a bomb went off in it. I wasn't one of those messy people who knew where everything was. I was the kind of messy person who was more worried about boys and my hair and making sure that my outfit was ready for the next day at school.

Sure I lost all sorts of things that were important, but being organized just wasn't important to me, even being tidy wasn't important to me.

I always felt like I had too much stuff for my room, no matter how big my room was.

College was more or less the same. But now we own our own home. And no one is quietly tip toeing into my room to collect my dirties and bring back fresh folded laundry.

Now my home is truly my sanctuary. Yea I still mess it up, don't worry, its not always perfect. But I care about our home and how it runs, so I make the effort.

 I don't day dream about boys anymore, I wonder about how to make our small home function better. No...really I do.

There's so many great tips about staying organized. But the very first tip that matters is that you need to want to be organized to be organized. You need to try to be organized even when its easier not to. You need to understand that in the beginning it wont be fun, or easy and you'll probably want to give up.

  The first tip is that you need to be willing for the change, even though it's difficult and easier not to

Join me next Friday as we talk about organizing. Hopefully we can slowly change some naughty patterns that make our homes less organized and tidy.

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Organize

Here are some posts on organizing
(Recent posts to less recent posts)

form & function open storage

Dont wait-organize today

Storage in plain view

Organized Open Shelving





Everything should have a place to live