OCD except for that forest and trees thing...

We all do our lives differently, and falling into the somewhat OCD category, I don’t like things on horizontal surfaces.  I want wide open, uncluttered surfaces.  That said, once a surface gets cluttered, I sort of stop seeing any individual thing on it, and become terrible at seeing the mess or specifically the things I leave around. I've struggled with this forever... Here are some of my not-so-normal strategies.

1. My 4-5 minute, “Holy shit, we’re having company!” Style of picking up.  

This culminates in a frenetic flurry of activity with lots of music, and a basket in hand, sometimes two baskets.  One for general stuff and one for my daughter’s crap she leaves everywhere like a trail of bread crumbs.  I generally do this everyday in the main areas of our house.  Then I put the stuff in the baskets away, and dump all my daughters stuff in the middle of her bed, or leave it by the stairs for her to remove it.  

2. Put anything I don’t know what to do with, or don’t have time to put away in a single location(on top of my washing machine)

This buys me some time, so those pieces of wood I was using, that require me to move the car and get the ladder to put them away has a spot to chill out until I can actually do it.  

3. Everything in its spot.  

Evaluating storage, so using what we have is easier.  If I put my blender above my refrigerator, I would never use it.  This is about evaluating how you use your space, and finding things that help you accomplish life more easily.  These things tend to happen when Siri is not around.  If she is, they tend to derail, and instead of having a more efficient set up, I just have shit all of the floor that all of a sudden needs to get put away immediately, because it’s time to do something else.

4. Cleaning - share the load

Siri is responsible for some jobs, I do most of the dusting, and my husband does most of the vacuuming.  We generally clean the area of the bathroom we use.  He does the shower, I do the bathtub, we split the toilets.

5. The “kinda” Plan

Definitely not formal, but knowing the nights we are home to be able to do the picking up, or spend five minutes dusting the family photo wall helps me find minutes here and there to do small tasks instead of spending an entire day cleaning house.

6. Laundry sucks and is like a never-ending avalanche...  also, we have a fussy washing machine...

Of all the tasks, I really dislike laundry.  That, paired with our rubbish washing machine(which starts stinking like must, mold, and dead things) makes it so I need to do all the laundry in one day, so the rest of the time the washing machine can dry out.  Between two beds, one child, two adults, a homeschool coop, and a cat and a dog, there are at least 7 loads to do.  In.One.Day.  Did I mention that I hate laundry?

That last one really wasn’t a tip, but I just felt the need to share...

How do you do you?  What works for you?

Thanks for stopping by!