1. My mother helps me get things done. When she visited a couple of weeks ago, I used it as my chance to purge. It worked. Granted, I love my mother and we get along. If this is the case for you, take advantage of her help, or find someone else to help you do so.

1. Books. I am a grad student and have a lot of them. I hate to get rid of them and usually will not do so. However, there is plenty of extra storage in my basement, and not so much in my bedroom. So, books that I don't need to study, or won't be rereading soon, are in my basement in labeled rubbermaid containers.

3. Try to do the dishes as you use them, or at least everyday. Not that this actually happens all the time, but a clean kitchen is definitely a lovely thing.

4. Keep a trash can and an expandable file by the front door. Open all of your mail right away. Throw away the junk, put bills somewhere where you'll remember to pay them, and stick any filing into the file straight away.

5. Keep a junk basket by your coffee table. Anything that doesn't belong goes into the basket and gets put away when you get to it.

6. Desks? Well, I'm still working on that one. I hate paper. Really.

Vincent

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Originally posted by nolageek:
Oh my god, this all sounds like me. I've been called the Sixth Sense before because whenever I've been in a room for more than 5 minutes all the cupboards and drawers are left open.

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This made my day.

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Originally posted by Sun Kitty:
Hunny is out of town.. Have been up to like 2 am every night, putting things in order!
Got to lover rubbermaid!

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quote:

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Originally posted by chitowngal:
please...come play at my place....please....

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I should add that before I would be in the mindset of "oh I should clean my place because this person or that person is coming by". But now, even when I know no one is going to see this place, I do it anyway. Why? Because I want to do it for me. When my place is clean, my mind seems to be uncluttered as well and I feel like organizing other parts of my life to go along with a clean room. It's a weird feeling, but it's a good one, I think. So now the thought of doing it for myself has really helped me to totally change my cleaning habits.

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Originally posted by messychik:
Does anyone know what the PSYCHOLOGICAL root(s) of this problem are?

Effects of trauma? Depression? Perfectionism burnout?

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For me, I'd go with the more mundane explanation of "upbringing".

In my family, cleaning up has always been viewed as a boring thing, something to get rid of as quickly as possible or avoid doing so that time can be used for better purposes.

Edited to say that reaction to traditional family roles is also part of it. I have much more fun unclogging a pipe, or moving furniture around, or even carrying out the garbage, than doing more traditionally feminine tasks like washing the dishes.

Doing "manly stuff" makes me feel great in a "See, I'm as good as any guy!" way, whereas I have mixed feelings about "women stuff". I feel kind of guilty when I get pleasure out of a clean kitchen, as if it wasn't a worthy goal, as if it might divert my energy from higher ambitions like saving the world, or getting the Nobel prize.

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Originally posted by messychik:
Does anyone know what the PSYCHOLOGICAL root(s) of this problem are?

Effects of trauma? Depression? Perfectionism burnout?

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Our family had a rule of all cleaning being done from the time you woke up on Saturday morning until noon. By noon it all had to be done.
It always irritated me that a perfectly nice day was spent cleaning.

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Originally posted by meggo:
Our family had a rule of all cleaning being done from the time you woke up on Saturday morning until noon. By noon it all had to be done.

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may I also join the ranks of the slobs?

Papers everywhere. Piles of clothing. Little cat-hair tumbleweeds. Pens. Juice bottles and pop cans. Cigarette ashes. Yum.

One of my faves - drinking glasses that have been sitting on my computer table too long and had a bit of juice in them that is now a jam-like texture, that will need to be scraped out of the bottom.

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Originally posted by kena:
For me, I'd go with the more mundane explanation of "upbringing".

In my family, cleaning up has always been viewed as a boring thing, something to get rid of as quickly as possible or avoid doing so that time can be used for better purposes.

Edited to say that reaction to traditional family roles is also part of it. I have much more fun unclogging a pipe, or moving furniture around, or even carrying out the garbage, than doing more traditionally feminine tasks like washing the dishes. I feel kind of guilty when I get pleasure out of a clean kitchen, as if it wasn't a worthy goal, as if it might divert my energy from higher ambitions like saving the world, or getting the Nobel prize.

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Exactly. Oh, exactly, to all of the above. And in my family, "better purposes" could include such activities as watching a silly movie, or doing a crossword puzzle. I can't stand repetitive things, in general. I don't take the same route to work every time, I don't like to do the same thing every day, and I don't like cleaning tasks that have to be done over and over. I can manage to get the dishes washed, but cleaning the whole kitchen is a matter of a great deal of procrastination and angst. I'm in the middle of some fairly routine chores right now: cleaning out the refrigerator, running white vinegar through the coffeemaker to clean it, taking out the recycling -- and it's all I can do not to run out and go hiking or shopping or something instead -- and now I'm pausing to hang out on the internet, which of course makes the whole cleaning thing take even longer.

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Originally posted by noraneither:
...but cleaning the whole kitchen is a matter of a great deal of procrastination and angst....

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Speaking of PROCRASTINATION, what do you guys think about this?

Okay, a better idea might be to simply surface clean. If you have ten minutes, you can at least go through and pick up the strays and put them where they belong. Or maybe just concentrate on high traffic areas where he'll be.

I have to add my two cents about the everything having its own place. We moved recently (like 4 months ago, so this excuse is wearing thin), and there are tons of little things that just have no place to go, so they pile up on the futon. Or on Z's desk. Or still in boxes from the move! Like handbags. I'd eventually like to get hooks for the most frequently used bags, but meanwhile they are in a box on the floor. And scarves. I wear a lot of silk scarves in my hair. What the hell to do with these? They used to be in a little wicker basket on my dresser, but I hate this solution. Any suggestions, Digsters? The guy who we bought the place from STILL has not registered a change of address with the post office, so we've been very sweetly forwarding his mail (that stops when we run out of stickers I printed out). We don't have a flag on our mailbox, nor do we have a front table to put waiting mail on, so it usually sits precariously on the arm of the couch until it falls behind the couch or someone remembers to grab the outgoing mail. Ridiculous! And what do other people do with winter hats/scarves/mittens? I wish we had a front table with a drawer or a bench with storage, but the lay-out of our front door just doesn't really allow it...

And then there's the laziness/too-busy quotient. It's not a reason, it's an excuse, but I keep pulling the "full time job, part time job, and working on my thesis on the side" excuse, but I just NEVER want to clean. I'm always too tired, and I usually end up sitting on the couch watching TV, getting on the Internet, or (better) playing the piano. I know for a fact that in our bedroom closet is a Diet Coke can from WHEN WE MOVED IN (August) plus the lightbulb-cover from the ceiling fan that tried to come crashing down on us the first time we slept with the fan on. We've since thrown away that fan, but that lightbulb cover is still there. Oy! I've even been in that closet a couple times lately and have thought, "Wow, I should really throw that crap away."

Z and I have got some vacation time coming up, and instead of taking a romantic get-away, we're going to spend that time putting the house in order. I'm another one of those insanely Type A neat freaks smashed into the same body as a slob, but lately, my life is such that we're those people with stacks of papers and things on the stairs ALL the time (and regardless of how many trips we take up and down the stairs, things very often stay there for days), and quite often the slob wins.

Whew! Feels good to get that off my chest. The boy is going out tonight to a lecture with my grandfather's wife (smashing good time, right?) so I'll have some alone time to do some much inspired cleaning!!

It was actually Isabelli Rossellini who said it, she said it was something her mother (Ingrid Bergman) taught her.

Some solutions:
* Handbags: get some drawers to put them in so they keep their shape.
* Scarves can be pegged to coathangers and hung up too - easy to see that way!
* Winter hats/gloves/coats get put in my big travelling suitcase and put under the bed where all of my suitcases are stored. When they're in use I have been known to (a) get a coat stand and (b) string up washing line on the wall of the front entrance and use coathangers to put the coats onto the line (use pegs to put hats and gloves on coathangers too!).