It's easy to imagine how a house can collect things. Like a giant magnet, snapping up passing objects and hurtling them up the front steps into the hallway or the kitchen or the basement.
Or perhaps it isn't the house. Maybe it's the inhabitants of the house, instead... like a row of tiny ants picking up a large bean or a small seed and moving it into the room and then going back out for another and another and another.
I have ineffective habits. I don't like to use the word "bad" because that is so ethically and morally charged word. I don't think habits in themselves have a negative or positive moral feeling but a feeling that they either make your life more happy, effective, healthy, fulfilled... or they don't.
One of my inefficient, negative leaning habits is the accumulation of stuff. Being an "Anne-of-all-trades" I have so many hobbies. I love to cook. I love gardens. I love taking photographs. I love crafts of all sorts. I love games. I love books. I love music. And with each of these hobbies, I add another pile of stuff. Lenses, paint, fabric, zippers, lemon-zesters, cookbooks, drawing books, plant books, paper, board games, dice, I could go on and on. It is a lot of stuff. It is overwhelming.
And it is a mess. Ever heard: "A place for everything, and everything in it's place?" Well, that's not how it is at my house. There only a few places for a few things and everything else on the counter. Or the dresser. Or the table. Or the floor in the corner.
My hubby and I also collect art. I would say he is a curator, but he doesn't agree. One thing we do agree on: the walls are for art. The bummer of that is that if the walls are for art, then the walls are not for book shelves, or cabinets, or other places for "stuff" to call home.
So I'm disorganized. I've always struggled with it. I can remember being a little girl and going through drawers of toys and organizing them... then 3 days later it was like all that organization never even happened. But the struggle is there. I won't give up. I've read Covey, Morgenstern, and tons of other authors on how to organize your life.
I have breakthroughs every so often. I've been using google calendar to organize my time and it is working like a charm. I'm still busy as ever, but I can look at my my calendar on my phone and quickly tell people if I can attend their event and I can even write it down right then, so I know I can't overbook it.
I've also been much better at grocery shopping and healthy eating. Granted, I haven't mastered this, but each weekend on Saturday morning, I'll breeze through my vegan/vegetarian cookbooks and find 3 or 4 quick recipes I think my hubby and I'll like and then write up the name of the recipe, the book/page it's on, and then I'll make up my grocery list. I'll go to the market or the whole foods and get everything on my list (plus a bit more). This organized food shopping is much more effective than my old style: "I'm hungry. Whats for dinner? I don't know. Let's go out and get something."
So in my battle with ineffective habits, I have found: Habithacker.
So far it has helped me to:
- clean up before going to bed.
- leave an area as clean (or cleaner) than when I got there.
- "Shovel my Shitspot": This means to find a single place that tends to gather junk and make a regular - everyday - effort to clean it off/out. For me: that is my kitchen sink.
I'll let you know how this goes. Wish me luck!
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