A Place For Everything And Everything In It's Place

There is a shop near me that is dedicated to organizing your work, home and life. It has the slogan A Place For Everything And Everything In It's Place. I fell instantly in love with it. In fact, they had me at A Place For Everything. I desperately love the idea of everything being neat and organized. Yeah, I'm a bit of a control freak that way I guess. Sadly I'm also a total failure at it too. As much as I aspire to this heavenly vision of living, I must acknowledge, having two small children seems to put a bit of a crimp in this dream. I keep telling myself, however, that lots of people have kids and I'm sure that some also have it together. If I just had a plan I could do it! 

This desire isn't born of some ill conceived idea that I need to be a perfect wife and mother with a perfect June Cleaver house. It's not anywhere close to that. Though my current state of affairs speaks otherwise, I really am a very clean and organized person. When I was working I cleaned my office every day. Even the little buttons on the phone. I prepared everything I would need that day and line it up neatly on my desk. When the CBC would tone exactly one o'clock on the radio, I would set my watch. Everyday. This is part of who I am. One of the weirder parts, sure, but who's normal now a days? I'm harmless. Mostly.

I've been going through and reading a lot of the blogs participating in NaBoPloMo over the last couple of days. Many have been talking about a desire to get more organized and purge all the clutter from their lives. This includes not just stuff but people, bad habits and a number of other things. Everyone has those boxes in storage that haven't seen the light of day in years. One person has vowed to go through one box a day and toss out or donate what's there. Other's have a list, but no plan on how to accomplish it. I totally share that frustration!

My plan that I hope will totally succeed at is this: Each day assign one task to do around the house. Maybe it's clean the kitchen or bathroom. Maybe finally organize all that damn Tupperware. I want to give one hour of attention a day to each of my daughters. Just our one on one time. Then one hour of share activity with the three of us. The rest of the time they can have some free play time and I can get some of my work done too. Anything above and beyond that is gravy. The aim is that things slowly get more organized and clean around the house while not taking time away from my kids. Then all I have to do is maintain it. Easy peasy, right? Do you think it will work? Oh I sure hope so. I can't afford a cleaning service and professional organizer.

Do you have any secret strategies for getting and keeping your life more organized? OK, I guess if you mention it the secret will be out. It's for the greater good! Think of the lives you would change for the better! It's your duty as a decent human being to share. Don't let humanity down.