The beginning. . .

So, one of the ideas laid out in the introduction "getting motivated" workbook is that if you do something four times, you've done it and are on the course to a habit. Therefore, I'm starting with the daily goal of doing at least 7.5 minutes worth of clutter diet stuff AND blogging something about the process, ideas, products, etc. each day for four days. I honestly anticipate more than 7.5 minutes of actual organization (i'm not counting prep), but my original manageable goal was 15 minutes and the workbook said to cut it in half.

I intend to come back with a fill-in post of context about what is clutterdiet as well as why I'm doing it, but for a brief intro, clutterdiet is a system designed to help you eliminate clutter and keep it off much like a diet and exercise program is designed to help you shed pounds and maintain that health. http://www.clutterdiet.com for basic info. It's actually the sister company to the organization company, http://www.livingorder.com/, that we used when we moved.

My goal is to take some pictures and get them posted in another blog tonight showing the reason why it is so incredibly necessary and important that this organization, clutter removal and cleaning occur. Basically, the house hasn't been organized or cleaned since February. I had a professional exam and made a conscious decision to just give up. Well, the big side effect of deciding to not clean is that you don't do maintenance organization. So now, I can't just hire someone to come in and get things in order because the place is such a wreck in terms of clutter, mess, dirt, trash, etc.

Unfortunately, I'm not exaggerating, but I do think I'm actually not in bad shape because I'm aware of the condition that the house is in and what it will take to get it in order as well as having the confident knowledge that we can be organized within our current space.

My deadline for myself for getting these pictures up is 2:00 pm Saturday, but I'd really like to see them up tonight.

Almost forgot: with the 4 day goal, I'm supposed to assign rewards, so here goes.
Day 1: Time to play Wii
Day 2: Movie with Paul while RH babysits
Day 3: Bath
Day 4: silly online game (frenzic, sudoku, etc.) for half hour
Big reward for succeeding across all four days: Audio book!

I think audio books might be a great route to take for rewards, because I can put them on my phone and then play them while I'm working on the next period's task thus making it more enjoyable and more likely to succeed. Maybe an audio book for each full week completed for four weeks, then one for each two weeks of success for eight weeks and then to one for each three weeks for the rest of time? Rather than standardize what "an audio book" means officially, lets just go with I need to be accountable to a degree of reasonableness.