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Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Tidy Tuesday - Eating an elephant

How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.  How do you tackle a cluttered, unorganized house?  One step at a time.  The more I think of the comparisons between the two, the more I see.

Eating an elephant - First, you have to decide you want to eat an entire elephant.  You have to get the proper equipment to take down your elephant.  You have to make room to process the elephant after you bring it home.  You have to chop it up into manageable pieces.  Then you eat as much as you can at each sitting.  Then you have to clean up afterwards and put everything away until your next meal.  You're going to get sick and tired of eating elephant after only a short time but you keep at it because you have a goal to achieve.  Easy!

Tackling a cluttered, unorganized home - First, you have to decide you want to have a clean, orderly house.  Next you have to gather boxes and bags for the decluttering part of the job.  Look around and see how much space you have compared to how much stuff you have.  Your goal is to keep them fairly equal (space + stuff).   The less space you have, the more stuff you'll have to part with.  Break this process down into small pieces, maybe one room at a time or one wall at a time...whatever is manageable.  Do as much as you can and at the end of each work session, clean everything up and if possible, take the unwanted things immediately to your local charity.  Don't go back and retrieve things!  Begin the process again the next day.  You're going to get sick and tired of doing this but you have a goal to achieve and it's going to be worth it!

After decluttering as much as you can, approach organizing the same way...small, manageable steps consistently and regularly.  Hopefully, you'll be developing new habits along the way.  Unfortunately, unlike eating an elephant (where you eventually get through the whole thing) , keeping your house clutter-free and organized doesn't stop after the house is finally clean and neat.  It's like laundry - never ending.  :)

2 comments:

  1. Then there are times you have to do as my daughter likes to do which is to cram as many bites as you can possibly fit in despite the danger of choking or worse... ;)

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  2. You're sure right! So, when the mood strikes to stuff yourself, take advantage of it! I promise you won't choke :)

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