31 Days of .....

 

Last year the author of Pancakes and French Fries joined the 31 Days series and did what she calls "The William Morris Project." It inspired me to simplify my own living space and since she's doing it again starting October 1 (and because my house still needs a lot of simplifying) I've decided to do 31 Days of the same idea, whether you want to call it "The William Morris Project" or simply "31 Days of Cleaning and Organizing". I think William Morris sounds a bit more intriguing though, so we'll go with that. I even made a button (see sidebar)!

The difference this time around is that I now have two children instead of one, which means smaller windows of time to get projects accomplished. And when I say small windows of time, I mean...about an hour during the day. That is all. Of course, there's always the evening. But by the time the kids are both in bed, the last thing I want to do is empty out the junk drawer in the kitchen and put it back together again. So I'm going to keep most of my projects fairly small, simple, and capable of being completed within an hour or less. Naturally, there are one or two projects (like the closet that looks like its out of Hoarders) that will take a bit longer than that and so I'll have to schedule those for the weekend when Tim can watch the kids while I chip away at our disorganization. There are also a couple of projects from last year's list that I never ended up tackling and will do so this time around.

So far, here is my list of what I want to accomplish in the next 31 Days (as forewarned, this list is so not glamorous):

•  Organize kitchen cupboards and drawers
•  Donate/sell unwanted kitchen appliances
• Sort and purge toy bins
• Sort and donate books
• Organize sock drawers
• Sort coat rack
• Pair down shopping bags
• Choose Scripture for display around house
• Hang Scripture pictures
• Recycle endless supply of cardboard boxes
• Sort/donate/purge at least three boxes from basement
• Deliver donations to thrift store
• Organize desk
• Clean cutlery drawer
•  Tackle junk drawers (kitchen, dining room)
• Clean beside/on top of fridge
• Art for reading nook
• Organize bathroom cabinet
• Organize closets
• Tackle spare room closet
• Throw out iris plants (I'll explain later...)

While this isn't 31 individual projects, many of them can be stretched over the course of a few days. Plus, I'm sure I'll think of some more things to do as I go along. Let me know if you plan to follow along or even do a bit of organizing yourself in the spirit of William Morris!