keeping our heads on straight...three minute cleanup

 

one of the things that never fails to make me pleased with myself rather quickly is the three minute cleanup. i just made that name up, but that pretty much says it in a nutshell. take this morning for example. as i stood in the bathroom getting ready for the day, i found myself annoyed by how cluttered the sink area was. where did all this come from? long-ago-finished magazines, clothing that - though once probably fine to be put away - now needs to be washed from makeup residue falling on it day after day...wrappers and packages everywhere - how does this happen??

if i were being as perfect as martha, this wouldn't ever happen, but luckily it doesn't take very long to gather up all the mess and put each thing in its rightful place. a quick swipe of the counter with a nice smelling wipe and it's over. done. the dawn of a new day, with even a place to put my coffee. such a nicer way to start the day.

good morning

this was today's daily thought from real simple (do you subscribe?) and i liked its simplicity and truth.

clean sweep

are you on stuff overload? i'm really trying these few weeks to purge as much as i can. mail? go through it every day. or something like that. i'm also trying to really scrutinize the stuff we have laying around and be ruthless about getting rid of it. i don't want to be one of those people whose home looks like a model home with no personal affects (well maybe a little i do...) but i do want something a little closer to that than i currently have. 

it was definitely time for another closet sweep which is always gratifying...i've been feeling the thrill of that purge since i've starting losing weight and it really doesn't lose its charm - the combined victory of being smaller than you were, making more room in your closet and helping others. it's a perfect cocktail, really.

and another thing i've been doing, and it's so small really, but so powerful, is getting rid of anything i see that doesn't serve a purpose or doesn't work properly. like these umbrellas for example. they're pretty and i've been so sad to see them break. but i've been stuck in stupid, still trying to use them despite their less than functional functionality. i've lamented their broken frames for long enough and it's time to say goodbye. it has felt oddly satisfying and renewing to trash them.

time out(side)

 

i've always felt like a special place outside is so important to my mental health. it's huge to me to be able to sit somewhere quiet and enjoy a breeze, a cool drink and watch the trees sway. it's a bonus if there are birds and flowers and a windchime.

over the years, mitchell and i have lived in places with abundant outdoor space and places with less, but i've learned that even when you don't have a lot, it's what you do with it that counts. i'm totally inspired by these pictures which show different ideas with all kinds of spaces...some large, some small, some with everything perfectly matching and coordinated and others that look like they came together at a moment's notice, from the necessity of having somewhere lovely to be.

do you have a place to be outside? if you don't, could you throw one together this weekend? i bet you could do it without spending a dime...

images from here, here and here

keeping our heads on straight....condense

you know those little things that have the ability to ever-so-slightly annoy you on a daily basis? like this eyeshadow, for example. the three that i (clearly) use have become difficult to use because they're all smushed up against the edges. this means every time i try to use it, i get more shadow under my nails than i do on my fingertips, and therefore on my eyes.

so the other day in an inspired moment, i swiped a q-tip around the perimeter of each of the three colors that were causing the problem, and what a difference. whenever i do little things like this, it's always amazing to me what a big difference tiny things like that make to your daily routine. it's an instant way of feeling calmer and more together, like things are in order.

i'm going to try and do one little condensing thing like that every day for the next few days. next up? combine the two bags of cotton balls into one. and tomorrow, i'm totally condensing my two metrocard balances onto one card. take THAT mental clutter.

want to join me in doing things like that? what's first on your list?

take care

when we were growing up, my sister molly was really neat and i was quite the opposite. she took good care of all her things, kept a tidy room and regularly dusted the dashboard of her car when she got one. my room and my car were both train wrecks. like, scary. think tunnels to walk through.

since then, i've improved quite a bit - i've learned the pleasures of a clean space, and i believe in the link between positive self-care and caring for your surroundings. so it always makes me smile when i sit across from this one woman on the train. she meticulously goes through the same routine each time she settles in. she sorts through her bag, putting things where they belong...she applies her makeup and handcream, wiping off each bottle and tube before putting it away. then she takes out her sunglasses and cleans them carefully. the care she uses with everything she owns reminds me of a little girl who takes impeccable care of her dolls, and as an adult, i respect it because i believe it connects to the way we care for ourselves.

i try to remember the examples of the train lady and my sister as i go through the world with all my stuff. i try to respect the money spent on things, the time spent creating them and my own enjoyment of owning them. all those things warrant extra care in their care.

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keeping our heads on straight...sunday best

do you have any sunday rituals? mitchell and i always try to get home early, if we go out at all, and we each prep our work bags for the week and do whatever else we can to get centered and organized to start the week.

all those routines are good, and they make a huge difference, but i love discovering little things that take a minute or two each that also have a big impact. for example, i have two baskets in my bathroom - one on the back of the toilet and one on the floor, and like any basket does, they can easily become catchalls on busy days. in our bathroom, a weekend that involves a few showers, makeup applications, shaves and hair dryings means catchall, and that just becomes stressful to look at.


last night, i thought to take a couple quick pictures right before i straightened them out because i knew it would be visually satisfying what a big difference a few minutes can make. i timed it - 3 minutes flat for both baskets, and i can't tell you what a big difference it made to see them both looking good and neat. then i lit a candle and turned off the light behind me.


they're not perfect - i'm really not much into perfection - but they're good, and that everything- in-its-place feeling is better than good.

i'd love to hear about the rituals that keep your head on straight.

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keeping our heads on straight...good ideas

well, today seems like as good a day as any to talk about getting and staying organized. this morning, i left half my breakfast on my vanity, my blackberry in the bathroom, my glasses on the counter of the coffee shop, the ring guard that keeps my rings on securely somewhere in the house...and that was all before 7:30. needless to say, my day is a little off kilter.

so it's ironic, and quite useful, that i have these tips to share with you - don't worry, they're not from me (clearly), they're from the contributors to this month's better homes and gardens feature on getting organized for the new year, which i strangely can't find a link to on their website. anyway, it's part of their highly useful series of 25 ways you can do ___, or 25 ideas for ___...and the magazine is so cheap that it's a great one to pick up sometimes.

the best tips i picked up, and they are REALLY good ones, were these which i'm paraphrasing:

• clean out your bag each night , making you ready to start each day fresh. it's so simple, but so good. sometimes i do this on the train, even in the morning, and it serves the same purpose. there's something just so good about knowing you're not carrying around any extra garbage, and everything is in its place.
• limit your to-do list to a few items you can get accomplished TODAY. this one, to me is genius. i have a running to-do list, some of which is from the summer. clearly, many of those items aren't time sensitive, they just need to be done at some point. but it's true that when i flip to that section of my filo (yes, i'm still all about paper in this regard), i see an endless list and i'm sort of desensitized to it. i've taken this piece of advice to heart and implemented a post-it strategy. each morning (also on the train), i extract three items from the longesttodolistever and write them on the post-it - those are my goals for TODAY. so rather than a TO DO list, it's a TODAY list. i have already found i get more done that way, and enjoy a feeling of accomplishment and control which, really, is the whole point of a to do list in the first place. as i complete each day's tasks, i mark them as done on the bigger list, and choose the next three for tomorrow.
  

then, a segment on my new favorite the nate berkus show also comes to mind...he had a woman on who is a procrastinator and is, naturally, totally overwhelmed by the monumental tasks before her like going through her mail, checking her voicemail and decorating her daughter's bedroom. although those are sort of pedestrian tasks, it's easy to understand how they could become very daunting when left undone and how you could develop a lot of anxiety about having to do them.

the main suggestion of nate's expert was to break down each task into smaller tasks so they'd be more achievable and less overwhelming. this sounds so obvious, and it is in a way, but it's really quite perfect. rather than stressing about decoratingherdaughtersroom, today's task would be to go to a paint store and pick up some swatches and decide on a color. then tomorrow, look at furniture options online. suddenly, it's not only manageable, but could actually be pleasant! this dovetails nicely with the to do list suggestion from BHG and really has the potential to turn into a way of life.

i love getting good advice, and i love passing it on.

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pulling our thoughts together

i love this idea for right next to my front door, don't you? especially in such a busy season, i feel like every home could probably benefit from a center of organization...as close to the outside world as possible - where you enter and exit the house!

do you have any good strategies for keeping your head on straight so you don't drown in lists and receipts and ideas and packages? i'd love to hear them!

image credit

how many cooks in your kitchen?

since thanksgiving is such a kitchen holiday, i thought it best we kick it off with some inspiring and calm kitchen pictures, courtesy of martha herself. here, we can see how everything is in order and everything has a place. though most real life kitchens aren't this organized, clean or color-coordinated, i like to think we can all take cues from martha and the other experts and implement them where they work for us in our own very real, very not TV ready lives.





i know in my family, a few key things help (though by no means eliminate rushing)...we try to always start with an empty dishwasher, ready to be filled as we go. we pre-decide and label all the serving pieces we'll use so they're clean and available, and we don't have to run around improvising. i find it also helps having that list to work from - it's methodical, it's orderly and it gives you a sense of control and purpose as you work. of course, trying to do as much as you can in advance helps to, which would explain why my mom has been chopping vegetables since last thanksgiving.



and speaking of vegetable chopping, i've personally found rachael ray's garbage bowl idea life-changing, as it eliminates counter mess and walking back and forth to the garbage leaving onion peels and wrappers in your wake.





if anyone has wisdom on cutting onions, i'd love to hear it...we tried the candle the other day. NOPE.

what time-savers or nerve-calmers are you using in the kitchen this year?

read the comments on this post for honey living readers' best kitchen tips!

and for other great martha tips for living, read on.

all images courtesy of martha stewart

remember the rituals

starbucks always has good one-liners...i love that when they serve you your coffee they say "let me know if your drink's not perfect." it's not even just posted on a sign somewhere - they say it!

so i wasn't at all surprised to see a sign on the door recently that said "take comfort in rituals." AMEN. isn't a good ritual something we can all take such comfort it? whether it's the way you make the bed in the morning, the few minutes you sit quietly and sip a hot tea, even where you place your keys, your umbrella, your wallet when you get home at the end of a long day.

often, the first things to go when we're stressed out or overtired are the rituals and routines that keep us grounded and sane. i know when i'm rushing around in the morning, running late, my inclination is to skip the 2 minutes to make the bed - that's 2 minutes i could use somewhere else. but it's the wrong choice, i've learned, in so many ways. first, the simple act of taking that 2 minutes is calming - it makes me feel more in control, and reminds me to put one foot in front of the other and take it easy on myself a little. it also makes me feel less frenzied when i'm turning off the light and leaving the room, knowing i'm leaving a neat, calm bed behind me.

and when i return home after the long day i rushed to, it's a terrible feeling to walk into a bedroom in disarray. it's far better to be welcomed by a pretty, relaxing space - a small but crucial reward for a day of doing and going. other than in some filmic sliding doors situation, that 2 minutes doesn't slow me down very much and certainly doesn't affect monumental change, but skipping it could change everything.

another ritual i have been loving recently is my ikea milk frother which you might remember me talking about as a tiny treasure last year. it makes the milk frothy but not hot, and gives a whole new level of luxury to the morning cup. in all seriousness, you need to get one. and they're $1.99.

for more on rituals and keeping our heads on straight during the holiday rush, read on.

outside in

one of the best things about my marriage is the way that mitchell and i see eye to eye on most of the big stuff, but we have such different approaches to things small and large, which makes each of us better. he often comes up with solutions that i would never think of, and vice versa. when consulting each other on challenges we're facing, we often stare incredulously at one another's suggestions, as if to say "i never would have thought of that." it makes for good teamwork and the occasional "spirited debate."

so this weekend, i plan to employ one of mitchell's strategies for cleaning and organizing...my closet is more or less verbally asking to be organized so i must oblige. i think some of the items you see above literally threw themselves onto the floor our of frustration. it's a multi-part process, for sure, and i've been inspired by these great closet photos (minus the atrocious one directly above) from nicole of making it lovely, so i'm using them as my driving force. i'm thinking if she can do this all with a freestanding ikea wardrobe, i can make sense out of my small walk-in closet.


mitchell's smart idea is to remove everything and then organize and purge as you bring things back in and place them neatly where you want them. here's what i mean kids - i never would have thought of that. i would have been crammed in the closet with barely a foot to move around, sweating, cursing, wishing i had never started this damn project.

mitchell's plan makes a bit of a mess of the room temporarily, but overall is a much more effective strategy, i've found. it also forces you to assess the ways you're storing things and all the tools bought over the years - special hangers, boxes and bags and forces you to consider a new formula. to start, i've stocked up on hot pink bins and baskets on heavy sale at bed, bath and beyond and i'm ready to strike.

and now that i've seen nicole's lovely little chestnut of a plan (above), i'm cooking up my own. i love me a good plan.

what are your weekend plans?

images from making it lovely