I expressed my frustration over the state of things, and committed to three specific goals that would (hopefully) allow me to change my situation in the following week.
Several people asked me about it throughout the following week, but of course when the time came to post about my success (or lack thereof), I suddenly had more important things to do.
I realize now that I am two months late, but for those of you who were still curious, I figured the least I could do was post some before and after photos for you, so here we are:
My Kitchen, Before:
My Kitchen, After:
The School-room, Before:
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The School-room, After:
The School Closet, Before:
The School Closet, After:
Now, as far as my three commitments go, what worked and what didn't?
Well, the first one was to get up at 6 am every morning.
This one was without a doubt the hardest. I used to be an early bird, but somehow either having kids or getting older (or a combination of both) has made this commitment almost impossible for me to keep. I was exhausted. I made myself do it, but I'm not sure how helpful it was, because I was so tired I couldn't work very efficiently.
Also, I've noticed that no matter how early I wake up, and no matter how quiet and careful I am, my kids always wake up very soon after I do (and the only thing more irritating than walking around like an aimless zombie at 6:15 is walking around like an aimless zombie at 6:15 being followed by whiny zombie children). So, if the reason I'm waking up early is to get time to myself, it's pointless. I still believe that waking up early is important (and now that daylight savings time is over, it is easier, and I'll probably take advantage of that), but I'm not sure I'll continue to wake up at 6 am every morning, at least not unless I can also start making myself go to bed earlier at night....
The second one was to never go to bed until my sink was clean and empty of dishes.
This one was probably the easiest commitment to keep, and by far the most rewarding. It was a little annoying to have to give up a chunk of every evening (when I'd rather be snuggling with the hubby and watching TV), but it actually took much less time than I thought it would, and pretty soon my whole kitchen was clean. I wish I could say that I stuck to that first commitment after that week was over... but I didn't. I will definitely need to get back to that, though. I like it when my kitchen looks like this:
The final one was to set aside half an hour every day to clean the school room.
This one was moderately difficult, mostly because of my procrastination tendencies. I would keep saying "I can take that half an hour later..." and then it was night and I didn't want to have to do that ON TOP of washing dishes and cleaning the sink. Also, it was discouraging, because half an hour hardly left a dent in the mess and disorganization of the school room at all, at least at first. I know that most cleaning and organizing experts encourage you not to take on too much at once, so that you don't get burned out, but in my house I also feel like if I spend too little time cleaning per day, then it makes no difference (because my kids and I can make messes much faster than I can clean them). In the end, though, the half hours stolen here and there DID make a difference (as the photos above testify). I probably had to spend a little more than half an hour on a few days, though.
Bonus lessons learned...
A few things about this experiment really surprised me.
First of all, I thought just focusing on those three commitments would be more than enough and I probably wouldn't get much else done. Surprisingly, my success in those areas encouraged me to take on other tasks. I caught up on laundry and even cleaned several other rooms in the house. I started cooking real meals again instead of buying frozen meals from the store (actually having clean dishes helped).Secondly, I thought if I was busy focusing on keeping these commitments and cleaning, I would be ignoring my children. I was surprised to find that, by including them in the cleaning (they helped empty the dishwasher and put away toys and laundry), I actually spent even more time with them than I usually do, and somehow even found extra time to read and play with them. I guess being more intentional with part of my schedule led me to being more intentional with all of it.
Finally, I learned making this commitment for just a week was a little silly. I mean, I did that because I knew I had some complicated stuff coming up (my husband and I were about to travel out of town, and then the kids and I were going to start school), and I didn't want to try to add extra commitments to that. Also, I fully expected to blog about my experience within a week, at which point I would renew those commitments.
Of course, that didn't happen, and when the week ended, I just sort of felt free of the commitments I had made. I quickly reverted to my old habits and my house quickly became messy again (at least the school closet is still pretty organized, though). Obviously, one short week was not long enough to change my life-long bad habits. I knew that. But I really didn't want to commit to more without seeing how things went. That was kind of a good idea, but I think I still should have expected a little more from myself.
So, as things now stand, I am going to recommit to at least the commitment of having the clean sink. That one worked very well.
I will also recommit to the half-hour of cleaning, but with some changes: I am going to set a specific time for my half-hour of cleaning so I can't put it off, and I'm going to vary where the cleaning will take place (it doesn't always need to be in the school room now that I've made such good progress there).
As far as the waking in the morning commitment goes, we'll see. I think I will still try to get up early, but be a little more flexible about it.
I think that these commitments, in addition to the list commitment I made in my last post, will be helpful as I venture into the generally insane holiday season.
Besides the holiday season, though, there is another very big reason that I need to get my life (and my house) in order, and that will be the topic of my next blog post. So, the plan is to post again next Monday (see how I didn't give myself as much wiggle room there). See you then!
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