ISO The Tidy Gene | Imamother

ABC

Thu, Jan 14 2010, 2:10 am

The home I grew up in was not very organized or tidy. While I try my best, it really doesn't come naturally to me, and I often don't even think of things unless I notice them at other people's houses. For example, it would never have occurred to me to make the beds in the morning, or fold the kids' PJs, but I saw that somewhere else and realized I should be doing that to.

So, please share your tidy tips. Like, how do you minimize clutter and make places for everything so they have where to go?

Please help. I want my kids to see tidiness around them and for it to come more naturally to them then it does to me.

louche

Thu, Jan 14 2010, 8:26 am

Yiyshar kochech for recognizing your own weakness and working to do something about it. That's often harder than everything else that follows.

There have been many such threads on this forum, so use the "Search" feature to look for "organizing" "decluttering" "cleaning" and similar terms. There are many excellent websites such as flylady.com and www.jewish-life-organized.com, and the library is teeming with books on these topics as well.

One concept that flylady emphasizes is "baby steps", very small actions that eventually add up to major impact. You don't have to revolutionize your housekeeping overnight; by changing one thing at a time, throwing out 5 useless pieces of paper a day or putting away 5 articles of clothing or dusting one room and so on, before very long you've improved 1000%.

imaima

Thu, Jan 14 2010, 8:34 am

louche wrote:

I have realized ththat knowing the advice is one thing, and using it is the other one. You just have to have a cleaning mindset in order to see and deal with dirt/clutter. I think it's more about working on your middos and constaNT REMINDING than actually using the tricks