Table of Contents

-Introduction
-Monthly Mission – Kitchen
-Check Out These Pages! – Relevant pages and new site additions
-Clean Routines with Flylady

Introduction

Hello and welcome to Spring! At least it feels like it, or even summer on many days. Plants and trees have been blooming and sprouting all over our new yard and I’ve been spending a lot of time outside trying to figure out what everything is and learning how to care for it.

We’re happily settled into the house, but now we need to figure out the daily routines of cleaning and maintaining stuff. Yeah, cleaning, bleh! Give me a bookshelf to purge instead! But I am determined to figure out something that works because honestly, I want my home to look clean and inviting. I tend to think of my house as an extension of my family and it shelters us and protects us. We need to take care of it in return to make it a relaxing and comfortable place to live.

Oh! And don't forget... if you live in the U.S., taxes are due April 15th!

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I have a love hate relationship with the kitchen. I love looking at pictures of clean kitchens, showcasing their beautiful cabinets and counters and fancy light fixtures. But in reality, it’s a struggle to keep any kitchen looking magazine ready because the kitchen is the busiest room in the house! We constantly make messes preparing meals and needing to clean them up. (I hate cleaning up after cooking.) Plus, flat surfaces (like kitchen counters) tend to draw stuff to them. This month let’s tackle our kitchens, including the cabinets, to see what we can clear out and organize to make using our kitchens more efficient and maybe a bit less cluttered. But no one is asking you to make your kitchen photo ready every day!! To read more about March’s monthly mission, click here.

If you’re in a hurry to put some order back into your home, perhaps Mimi Tanner's unique method will give you that jumpstart. Check out her method at Declutter Fast: How To Get Your Home In Order Almost Immediately.

Here are some pertinent pages on the website you may have missed along with any new pages.

Organize Your Cleaning Supplies - Get your cleaning supplies sorted and organized so you are ready to clean when the moment strikes you (or not).

Declutter Home and Life - Getting organized involves a lot more than just tossing some extra possessions. Read more about organizing beyond just your home.

Kitchen Organization - Get your kitchen organized before the cooking and baking begins, so you're better able to find things, and have more space to work.

Morning routine - Make your morning go smoother by planning ahead for your day.

Meal Planning - Plan ahead for meals to reduce trips to the grocery store and save time.

Time Savers - To help streamline your life, here are some daily time savers.

Clean Routines with Flylady

It has been brought to my attention (not that I didn’t notice) that things just aren’t getting done around the house in terms of cleaning. I have already explained that I dislike cleaning (scrubbing toilets, showers, doing dishes and the such), but it doesn’t mean it can be left undone. Certain things can only be ignored for so long. It was agreed many years ago that as long as I was at home during the day, it was my responsibility to get the majority of this type of stuff done. And I’ve been slacking.

Coincidentally, just today, I saw a woman post this very question, about how to put together a routine to get the basic no-fun chores done. What followed were lots of other people also saying they need help because quite frankly, they just don’t want to do those chores so they put them off. I am not alone!!

What people also said was that you just have to do those chores. You will never LOVE doing them, so there is no need to wait until you develop the love of doing them. Just do them now!

Several people also sang the praises of Flylady’s routines to help keep them on a very simple cleaning routine. Ah yes. The only time I truly kept house relatively well was a few years back when I was following Flylady as well. For some reason, I thought I could do it without her and quit following her routines. Oops!

I take this as a sign to go back to Flylady for support and to follow her simple daily routines. We all have our areas of life we’re good at, and there is no shame in asking for support in the areas we’re not so great at.

If you’ve never heard of Flylady, go check her out at Flylady.net. She is a super nice lady who wants to support people in their endeavor of keeping a comfortable home without the overwhelm and shame we tend to put on ourselves about being clean and organized.

Anyone else out there need some support in regards to basic routines to keep the house clean? Anyone going to follow me over to Flylady?


Until next time, happy organizing!

Tracy Greene
Plan-and-Organize-Life.com