Organization Games

I'm not a big fan of household chores. I do what I need to do to keep things running, but tend to put straightening things up near the bottom of the list. Consequently, I tend to tidy in spurts, and in sneaky little ways.

courtesy of all-free-download.com

Last week's magazine-a-day campaign is a perfect example of one of those sneaky little tricks. The magazines were (once again) taking over more than their fair share of space, so it was time to take action. The action I chose to take was hardly efficient (get rid of one magazine a day for a week), but it worked. In retrospect, I realized that I used the basic behavioral principle of pairing a pleasurable task (reading the magazines) with a necessary one (reducing the clutter). When it comes to theories, behaviorism isn't one of my favorites, but I have to admit that in this case, it worked. By the end of the week, I'd gotten rid of eight magazines -- painlessly -- and jump-started the desire to keep going. I'm aiming slightly lower this week (reading all those magazines took a bite out of my book-reading time), but hoping that going deeper into the pile will mean uncovering outdated issues I can toss without reading.

courtesy of www.freepsdfile.com

One of the women in the organizing class I taught last spring has an even better system -- her junk mail never makes it into the house. She picks up the mail and sorts it in her garage, dumping the junk before she even walks into the house. Lacking a garage, I've never been able to adopt that strategy, but am working to adapt it instead, sorting the mail immediately instead of dropping it onto to a pile and moving on to the next thing on my list. Because I am by nature a drop and run kinda girl, this is more challenging than it sounds.



This drop and run style often leads to more than just magazines and mail piling up, and has served as -- ahem -- inspiration for another one of my pick-up tricks. Since much of the clutter in my house tends to accumulate on my dining room table, which is centrally located on the first floor of my house, I use a simple strategy of picking up one thing and putting it away each time I pass the table. Simple. Easy. Immediate reinforcement.

Oops. There's that sneaky behaviorism again.

courtesy of amny.com

While adopting the Nike slogan ("Just do it!") would probably make things happen a whole lot faster, my silly little methods end up making an unpleasant task more pleasant. I'm sure my naturally organized
friends -- the ones I've affectionately dubbed "Type A Organizers" -- are shaking their heads at my silliness as they sip their iced beverages in their spotless houses, but the rest of you -- the ones, like me, who struggle to keep up with the clutter that seems to be an inevitable part of life -- know just what I mean.

Please, join me in the games. And if they work at your house too, please let me know by commenting below or contacting me on Facebook. I'd love to hear about it.

Diamonds Among the Detritus

There's something about beginnings and endings of academic years that makes me want to take stock. This desire has outlasted my career in elementary education, and I'm not sure if that's because I still have a student in my house, or because it's a habit that's so ingrained, it just feels strange not to sort and purge and de-clutter.

This mindset has inspired a particular de-cluttering task, and in the spirit of summer vacation, I am mixing practicality with pleasure. My objective? To read a magazine a day each day this week. Hardly a lofty intellectual pursuit, I know, but I'm okay with that. I have plenty of things to keep my mind nourished; this particular goal is a means to an end -- one of the little tricks I play on myself to reduce the accumulated "stuff" that has piled up in my house.

I love to read - always have. I'm easy prey for a book or magazine with a cover that piques my interest, and if the cover (or jacket) copy is tempting as well, I'm likely to take it home with me and add it to my collection. The trouble is that reading material needs to be read, or it just becomes clutter, no matter how promising it is. And as much as I love to read, I never seem to find enough time to actually indulge in that particular pursuit.

But now it is summer. Days are longer. I've been relieved of the role of homework assistant/taskmaster for a few months, and it's the time of year where I find it just as easy to pick up a book as to pick up the remote. And while I have many to-be-read titles gracing my bookshelves and other surfaces, it's the magazines that are overrunning the place.

The magazine pile-up increased dramatically when my daughter was in middle school. Each fall, she came home with a glossy temptress in the form of a fund-raising packet featuring photos and thumbnails of hundreds of magazines. I wanted to be a supportive parent, and so I subscribed. A lot.

Consequently, although my daughter's middle school years are behind her, the detritus of the fund-raisers remains tucked away in drawers, bins and baskets, mocking me. I know I should just get rid of some of it, but the curiosity-seeking reader in me believes there's a gem lurking in each issue, and I'm certain that if I only find the time to excavate, I will be greatly rewarded.

But this week, the clutter-buster is lording it over the curiosity seeker. I want to sit down and read a book without being distracted by its glossy cousins, and so I need to reduce the magazine population. I know that as I dig through the piles in search of each day's reading adventure, I'll uncover coal among the diamonds. And, since I'm teaching a writing class in two weeks where back issues of magazines will be a valuable resource, now is the time to uncover -- and dispose of -- both varieties.

Reading one issue a day will still leave me time to write and to sample chapters in the novels and non-fiction titles that hover nearby, clamoring for my attention. It is, as I said earlier, part plan, part trick -- a means to an end that I can fit into a work schedule slimmed down by the changes in routine ushered in by summer vacation. And since I've already let many of these subscriptions lapse, I know there won't be as many issues coming into the house to fill the space I'm clearing. From an organizing perspective, that's a very rewarding payoff -- one that will help keep me on track as I mine the piles for diamonds.