Go Clean Your Room

I return to report on my quest for organization, inspired and influenced by the article, Cool, Calm, and Decluttered: 25 Ways to Pare Down and Get Organized for a Fresh New Year, in the Better Homes and Gardens January issue. Today's focus is on Tip 17:

"Go clean your room," can mean lots of things. Give your kids a list of exactly what you expect, and let them check off the tasks as they are done. (submitted to BH&G by Scott Roewer, professional organizer)

Tip 17 knows my heart, because I adore writing lists. I even keep a Book of Lists. But Tip 17 does not know the hearts of my children. As usual, when I said, "Go clean your rooms," grumbling, moaning and complaining commenced, but when I handed them their lists, complete with little check boxes next to each task, the real whining started.

"We have to do all these things?" one asked.

"Yes," I said. "Putting your dirty clothes in the hamper and closing your dresser drawers are pretty standard when it comes to cleaning your room."

"I don't have any misk-el-an-ous, so can I go ahead and put a check mark next to that one?" asked my 9 year-old daughter.

"And this says to fold our blankets on our beds!" screeched another child indignantly. "Why? We're just going to get back in our beds tonight?"

"Okay, fine" I replied. "Don't fold your blankets. I won't wash your breakfast dishes."

He stared at me. It wasn't computing. "What do breakfast dishes have to do with my room?" he suspiciously asked.

"You're just going to eat off of them again tonight," I told him, using his same logic.

"Oh." He and his siblings went to clean their rooms.

For all their complaining about the lengths of their lists, when I went to inspect, I found that I hadn't been thorough enough in my itemization. I forgot to include:

• Put books on proper bookshelves, not on top of the bookcase.
• Socks are clothing. Dirty ones go in the hamper with dirty clothes.
• Close the closet door.
• A once-used towel is not dirty. Hang it in the bathroom.
• The area behind your door is not storage AND its part of your room. Put that stuff where it belongs.
• I will check under your bed. Don't kick everything under there.
• ALL trash goes in the trashcan. Socks are not trash. I repeat, socks are clothing.
• Sitting on your bed staring into space is NOT the same as "going to clean your room."
• Don't come out of your room until you're done.

Nonetheless, their rooms were somewhat tidier than before they started. And I learned two things from this experience.

1. It's hard to change the organization habits of other people, even small people. And its hard to get organized in a household in which you're the only person who cares.
2. Children don't get the same thrill as I do out of checking things off of lists.

Tuck Your Skirt in Your Panties and Run Book Trailer

Lucy Adams is the author of two books: Tuck Your Skirt in Your Panties and Run and If Mama Don't Laugh, It Ain't Funny.

Think, Think About It

I love Tip 16 from the Better Homes and Gardens January issue article, Cool, Calm and Decluttered. It's something anyone, everyone, can do. Most of us do it without even knowing we're doing it. Tip 16 urges us simply to think:

If you're having trouble letting go of clutter, whether it's too many things in your house or too many commitments eating up your time, think about what it requires you to sacrifice. Less stuff means less to organize and less money spent. Fewer activities means less running around and more family time. (submitted to BH&G by Laura Wittmann, author of Clutter Rehab)

That Laura Wittmann, now she's my kind of organizer, because a lot of the time what happens to me in the middle of getting something organized is I start to think. I think about all of the possibilities for the closet I'm cleaning out. I think about all of the alternative uses for the box of costume jewelry that's been stashed on the top shelf for five years. Then I think about the room that the closet is in and what color I'd like to paint it. Before I know it, I'm flipping through home design magazines, like Better Homes and Gardens, and thinking about all of the ways I'm going to re-decorate my home someday, when I have enough time and money. But this kind of thinking probably won't get e the kind of time and money to which Wittmann refers.

I am excellent at thinking about my stuff and my time. The problem comes when I must take action, mostly because my time isn't always my own. It's parceled out to 5 other people, four of whom depend on me to help them follow through with their own commitments. And the stuff in my house, other than the furniture and drapes and kitchen appliances, belongs to me only theoretically. Those other five people tend to have emotional ties to things I never even considered important. At some point I think I have to honor and R-E-S-P-E-C-T that.

So, while I would sooooo like to live like a minimalist, the maxed out size of my family prevents me from it. For now, I'll have to settle for thinking about how wonderful that would be. That's okay, though, because I love to think about organization. I am really, really good at thinking about it.

(On a side note, since we're talking about thinking, my husband keeps encouraging me to think about taking a Cosmo challenge next month. Should I do it?)

Lucy Adams is the author of two books: Tuck Your Skirt in Your Panties and Run and If Mama Don't Laugh, It Ain't Funny.

Playing Games

Day 3 of a Georgia snow-in made me swiftly move forward with my self-imposed New Year's organization challenge inspired by the Better Homes and Gardens January 2011 issue. Using the article, Cool, Calm and Decluttered: 25 Ways to Pare Down and Get Organized for a Fresh New Year, I'm honoring my time-tested, but never achieved, yearly resolution, To get more organized. I guess I've never known exactly how until now.

Tip 13: Make clutter-busting a family game. Write tasks on ping-pong balls. Each person chooses a ball, completes the task, then chooses another one. After 30 minutes, whoever has the most balls gets a prize - like a no-chores day or control of the TV remote. (submitted to BH&G by Alicia Rockmore and Sarah Welch, authors of Pretty Neat: Get Organized and Let Go of Perfection)

I admit skepticism, and icy roads, kept me from following Tip 13 to a tee. Buying a billion ping pong balls would just result in bringing in more stuff for a less than enthusiastic brood to bounce around the hallways of my house. I would win the game every time because I would be the one picking up all of the ping pong balls.

BUT, because I couldn't take another day of kids loafing around making messes for me to clean up, we did play a game loosely based on this suggestion. It was a contest. I set a timer. It did involve rewards (money and my sanity). It had rules. And it resulted in decluttering. And I know it was really a game to all involved because kids were calling each other cheater and going to great lengths to win.

The goal of the game was for each child to try to collect, in 20 minutes, the most items to donate to the Salvation Army.

The rules:

• A child could only collect items over which he or she had decision-making jurisdiction.
• Any child who did not participate could not win a prize (this will become clearer when I list the prizes).
• No school books or supplies could be donated.

The prizes:

• $5 to the child with the most items collected.
• $4 to the child with 2nd most items to donate.
• $3 to the child with the 3rd most items.
• $2 to the child with the least items (but items had to be collected to win this prize. No participation = No prize.).

I can't say whether it was the money or the thrill of competition that activated their adrenalin, but when I said go, kids were throwing elbows and giving out war hoops heading up the stairs. Then one-by-one they raced up and down, piling stuffed animals, bouncy balls and outgrown baseball hats in the middle of the living room floor. "How much time?" each would shout, lunging back toward the stairs.

My enthusiastic 11 year-old brought all of his underwear and church clothes and dumped those in the floor. He figured he could go without for five bucks. Other than that, however, my children were willingly agreeing to get rid of stuff that had I gone to their rooms and tried to confiscate it, I would have been stopped by arguments as to why it was necessary to that child's existence.

Plus, even amongst subversive plots to remove items from large piles and put them in small piles and confusion over ownership of various submissions and some outright, flagrant attempts to donate other people's belongings, we had FUN. We LAUGHED. We shook off out winter blues. Two large garbage bags of donations later, not a single child had any regrets or remorse.

Tip 13 is a lot luckier than it sounds!

Lucy Adams is the author of two books:Tuck Your Skirt in Your Panties and Run and If Mama Don't Laugh, It Ain't Funny.

3 Tips for Surviving an Embarrassing Situation

Who hasn’t flirted with the cutest guy ever with a piece of pepper from lunch stuck in her front teeth or dropped a tampon on the checkout counter when pulling her wallet from her purse or asked the pharmacist to refill her “subscription.” We all experience highs brought down by discovery of our inadequacy. We all have accidents. We all say stupid things. And sometimes, in the midst of our mistakes, it can feel like the sky is falling and that we’ll never recover.

Really, how will we ever face the cutest guy again, knowing he saw that huge hunk of black pepper and didn’t say anything? Our imagination runs away with us. We imagine that he thought our front teeth were rotten, or that we’re so unattractive he didn’t think it was worth telling us we had something in our teeth. Oh the agony. Oh, how we duck our heads whenever we see him in the hallway. Oh, how we fear he’s laughing at us with his friends.

But embarrassing situations are survivable. It just takes some finesse.

1) First of all, stay calm. When that errant tampon drops and rolls across the checkout counter, don’t try to act like it isn’t yours. Don’t turn bright red and scramble to snatch it up, thus spilling the contents of your purse everywhere. Maintain your composure. Confidently pick it up and put it back in your purse as if it is a dime that got loose from your change purse.

2) Second, find some meaning in the situation. Learn a lesson of some sort. Maybe you need to resolve to brush your teeth after lunch. Maybe your purse needs a good purge. Maybe it’s a sign that your head is muddled up with too much information and you need a break from the routine. Whatever the message in the moment, listen to what the universe is trying to tell you.

3) Third, share it with someone. Telling another person about the experience makes it seem not so life altering. Relaying the story to a friend often makes us aware of the humor in it and the resulting laughter is very healing for the ego.

Apply these three principles and an embarrassing situation will never get you down again, at least not for long.

Lucy Adams is a newspaper humor columnist, freelance writer and author of Tuck Your Skirt in Your Panties and Run (Palm Tree Press, 2011) and If Mama Don’t Laugh It Ain’t Funny (Palm Tree Press, 2007). E-mail Lucy at lucybgoosey@aol.com and visit her web site, http://www.ifmama.com/.)  

Here Endeth the Lesson

As an elementary educator and adult educator I have always emphasized the importance of neat handwriting. I insist on it, much to the annoyance of students and their parents, and even sometimes my superiors. Neat handwriting indicates effort and pride in one's work.

I cannot count the number of parents who have complained to me about my strict adherence to this policy. Many have tried to persuade me to be lenient on their child, because, as they tell me, "I didn't have neat handwriting growing up." How unfortunate for them that no one cared enough to correct that.

Others have argued, "Handwriting isn't important anymore. We live in a digital world. Everything is done via computers." How unfortunate that no one cared enough to impress upon them the importance of a handwritten note.

I have even had parents bring papers to me insisting, "You marked number 3 wrong. Why?" And when I explain that I couldn't clearly read the answer, they say, "But I can read it." Do they plan to go through life with the child, translating his or her handwritten responses and notes for teachers, bosses, lovers, spouses?

The handwritten word is an important tool of communication, just like the spoken word or the typed word. If I mumbled, my ideas and information would be discounted as unintelligible. If my printer ran low on ink causing my wordprocessed page to not print crisply, no one would take time to decipher what letters or words should go in the gaps. Worse than those possibilities, however, people might misconstrue my meaning, attributing thoughts and words to me that I never expressed.

Likewise, the handwritten word, if messy and unreadable, can result in similar dismissals and misunderstandings. And today, after making this point for all these years, I can PROVE it.

This morning, at church, during the Prayers of the People, my husband kept glancing at me. He wore a sly little smile on his face. He rocked back on his heels, something he does when he's expecting accolades. Then the reader said, "We pray for those celebrating birthdays or anniversaries, especially Brad and Amy Adams, 18th wedding anniversary."

Today is my 18th wedding anniversary. My husband's name is Brad. BUT I am not AMY. I do not know who Amy is. He swears he wrote LUCY. He told me to check my self.

What matters more, I ask you, what the reader read from the page or what my husband swears he wrote?

Here endeth the lesson.

Lucy Adams is the author of two books: Tuck Your Skirt in Your Panties and Run and If Mama Don't Laugh, It Ain't Funny.

Decluttering the Clutter Collector

Today, in my Better Homes and Gardens decluttering challenge, I decided to tackle Tip 10 from the January issue's article, Cool, Calm and Decluttered; 25 Ways to Pare Down and Get Organized for a Fresh New Year. I had to skip Tip 9 due to absurdity.

Tip 9 reads something like, "A tighter focus for your to-do list clears mental clutter. Include only your three most important tasks, and don't let less important busywork distract you. If you complete everything on your list, great. If not, at least you'll know you spent time on the highest priority tasks." (submitted to BH&G courtesy of Meredith Schwartz, penelopeloveslists.com)

The problem for me with Tip 9 is that there is no woman on the face of this planet who can focus on only three tasks each day. Women work, mother, homekeep, volunteer and entertain. The curse of being female is that everyone else's priorities are my priorities, in addition to my own priorities. The joy of being female is crossing things off of a lengthy to-do list as a sign of success. In fact, I believe in and promote the Book of Lists.

Thus I went with Tip 10 (which makes a lot of sense to me): Spend a few minutes every night before bed restoring order to your purse. Remove all trash, return floating change to your wallet, and replenish tissues and business cards. It makes you feel ready to start the day. (submitted to BH&G by Claire Kurtz, courtesy of the wellorganizedwoman.com)

Before I tell how I did with this task, let me tell you about my college roommate. In our sorority house, we were never mistaken for being the neat freaks. We had clothes on our floor 6 inches deep. We never made our beds before class because we knew we'd just be getting back in them for a nap later. Chemistry homework regularly mingled with English lit essays.

When we graduated, she got a job in Atlanta and moved to an apartment there. After about a year in that apartment, shortly before her lease was ready for renewal, she decided to move. She did the same thing in her next apartment and in the one after that. I finally told her I was having a hard time keeping up with her address and remembering where she lived. "Why do you keep moving?" I exclaimed.

"Because," she said, "my apartment keeps getting dirty. It's easier to move than to clean it."

What does this have to do with my purse? Well, I started in on cleaning it out. I discovered receipts I'd lost, deposit slips I needed to file, money I didn't know I had, a toothbrush from a past dental visit, a bouncy ball, pens galore, and a few bottle caps. But when I pulled a sticky half-piece of gum sans wrapper from the bottom of my bag and a wadded napkin and a mangled lipstick missing its cap and some frayed feminine products from the depths, however, I came to the rapid conclusion that it would be easier to buy a new purse than to clean out the one I had. So I went to the store, selected a brand new bag and took all the crap from my old bag, except for the bouncy ball, the bottle caps, the sticky gum and the toothbrush, and neatly arranged it in my new one.

And I must say, I do feel fresh and ready to start the day. With a clean, tidy purse slung over my shoulder, I'm feeling very optimistic about this organization quest I'm on.

What did you do today to get organized?

Lucy Adams is the author of two books:Tuck Your Skirt in Your Panties and Run and If Mama Don't Laugh, It Ain't Funny.