TAKE YOUR HOUSE BACK
1. Resolve to admit the problem. To misquote Tolstoy: Every unorganized family is unorganized in its own way. So figure out your home’s problem areas: Poor paper management? Haphazard meals? Too many black shoes? Breeding toys? Once out-of-control areas are identified, commit to conquer each one.
2. Resolve to let go of more stuff. Open your cupboards, closets and drawers. If they don’t make you proud, clear them out. Then, before you shove the same stuff back in only neater piles, ask two questions of each item: Do I love it? Will I use it? If you say yes to either, then ask: Is this the best place for it? Would this storage area be better for other items, say, placemats instead of light bulbs? Purge anything you’re saving out of guilt or cheesy sentiment. All the kids’ artwork, really? Get rid of unnecessary multiples of common items. How many old T-shirts do you need? Establish a maximum for disposable items; if you save shopping bags, margarine tubs or gift boxes, allow yourself five and toss the rest. When putting away what made the cut, group like-items, so no tools in the towel closet. Everything you own should have a home. Give it one, and keep it there. (Progress note: My daughter and I just cleaned two craft cupboards, filled a jumbo trash bag, and now have just one craft cupboard. I feel holy.)
3. Resolve to use family planning. No, not that kind. Make sure your whole family gets on board with the plan for household order. If you’re the only one committed, well, better luck next year.
4. Resolve to organize those photos. If your photo situation is like mine, I say we form a support group. I’ll start by confessing: I have a giant plastic tub with photos dumped in willy-nilly, more photos stuffed in a kitchen drawer, more on my computer, and others lurking on digital memory sticks that I can’t find. I haven’t put a photo in an album since my youngest was born 13 years ago. To be clear, I’m not resolving to stick my photos into some cleverly stenciled, calligraphy- captioned memory book. Let’s be real. I am resolving to scan all photos worth keeping onto my computer, and file them by year and occasion. Some services will do this for you, and I’m tempted. Scanmyphotos.com will scan 1,000 photos and put them on DVD for $64.00.
5. Resolve to use space better. Turns out what goes down can — and often should — go up. A lot of stuff, especially kids’ stuff, winds up on the floor hogging space and tripping people. Think up. Use your walls. In kids’ areas and offices, set up shelves with stacks of matching bins or baskets. Use these to store stuff that isn’t beautiful, and most stuff isn’t. In the garage, hang bikes on heavy-duty hooks and install pegs to hold skis and hockey sticks vertically. Exploit the overhead garage space. Run a few heavy-gauge rafters across the ceiling space. Place laminated wood panels over those, and you can store that crib you just may need again and those light-up reindeer.
— Marni Jameson
This is a month of reckoning. After December (Shop! Eat! Party! Let the house go!), January brings on guilt so strong that I consider joining a monastery. Fortunately, I'm the wrong gender, so the monks are spared, and so am I. (Those outfits!)
Right after I take down the holiday decorations and deal with the shrapnel of petrified pine needles, the stacks of empty gift boxes, and my fresh case of hives, I face the signs of the past season's gluttony: the bills, the scale, the jammed cupboards. And I commit for the umpteenth time to take my house back.
I don't just need to hit the treadmill and freeze my credit cards. I also must purge, clutter-bust and reorganize, to compensate for a whole year of slouching toward hedonism. You know the pattern: Every January we de-clutter and reorganize. Come spring we relax and let our guards down slightly. By summer, we throw care to the wind. We start hoarding again in fall, then live like Roman gods from Thanksgiving to New Year's, when we resolve to end our bacchanalian ways and come clean.
Ahh, the cycle of life.
Which brings us to now, the time of year we need to re-resolve to get a better grip on the house and not let it slide into bedlam -- at least not before Valentine's Day? To start, I'm adopting two behaviors that do not -- unlike shopping, eating, partying and avoiding housework -- come naturally to me.
I'm going to incorporate discipline and order at home, which is what brings the monks to mind and those spanking nuns. (I'll obey!) This new behavior will mean not just creating systems -- a word I never got along with -- but also maintaining them. It will hurt.
I've researched what this will take (besides a lobotomy, because for this work it's best if your IQ is no higher than a houseplant's). In case you, too, want to take your house back this month, I'm sharing my New Year's resolutions (see column at right).
Syndicated columnist Marni Jameson is the author of "The House Always Wins" (Da Capo), available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. www.marnijameson.com.
