Day #4 – Clean an Area that Annoys You
To say I feel overwhelmed is an understatement. This month my mother (who recently moved in with us) starts chemo, radiation and physical therapy, both kids are back to school, and I still have to manage the household and our company’s bookkeeping. It’s easy to fall into the “poor me” trap, so I’ve decided to set up the I’m Too Busy to Take Care of Myself Challenge. My thought is if I can complete one task per day for myself I will feel more empowered. By the end of the month I hope to feel that not only will I not feel like I’m drowning, I’ll feel like I’m smooth sailing with a clear destination in sight. (That’s a lot to ask for. I’ll just go with “not drowning” and call it a win.)
Today’s challenge: Take 15 minutes and Clean an Area that Annoys You.
Talk about drowning – my office and kitchen are flooded with papers and electronics with no order in sight. Each day my kids bring home a monsoon of artwork, homework and papers I have to deal with. My mother’s doctors gave us (and by “us” I mean “me”, ’cause mom’s NEVER going to read this stuff) packets and packets of information about the disease and treatment. And anyone who has a small business knows how many bills and receipts pile up daily.
What does cleaning have to do with taking care of myself? My theory is spending a small amount of time to organize will reduce stress. If I know where to find important papers and don’t have to trip over boxes and chords, that will make my world a happier one. It will also save me time having to rummage through 80 different locations to find the field trip consent form. (Note to self- sign the field trip consent form.)
I can’t fix it all in 15 minutes. Unless I just throw everything, including the bills, in the trash, which may sound therapeutic, but I’m sure it would be kind of tough to explain to my family why the power is shut off. “Yes, dear, we have no power, but isn’t the office nice and clean?”
But 15 minutes is enough to start a small project. It is enough time to sort through some papers and find the counter again. Today I figured I had just enough time to find my kitchen countertops. Previously, I tried setting up an area for the kids papers in my office, but it just made no sense and the kids do their homework in the kitchen anyway, so it made sense to move the shelf there.
To get to the shelf, I had to take the box of clothes for my nieces to the post office and recycle the empty moving boxes that were stashed in front of it. I didn’t have enough time to go through all those receipts, so I decided to save them for a bout of insomniac productivity later this week. My main focus was the kitchen.
Some of the papers were trash, I took forms that needed to be completed with me to my mom’s CT scan, so that’s off my list. Now I have an inbox set up for school papers, a box for chords,
a box for all the markers and pencils, and a box for my mom’s paperwork too. Staying on top of everything will require daily effort, but if I break it down into 15 minute increments it will seem more manageable. My kitchen area looks calmer now, so I’m hoping that will make my breakfast go down easier too.
And speaking of breakfast, Day 5 Challenge is to eat fruit for breakfast…
How about you? What area of your home annoys you? How do you tame it?
Lisa 
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Have you seen my basement office? Yes you have, it’s chaos. But I take on your challenge, by clearing off Jayden’s desk. God bless her for being creative, but the child needs to clean up after herself!
The artwork really adds up, doesn’t it? LOL
More like paperwork and crap 😛
Oh you mean her area 😉 LOL Yes, her artwork adds up, my paperwork and crap adds up as well.
Mine too. Yikes!