I love deadlines. They can stress me out, but I am amazed at what I get done when I have a deadline! They are an amazing organizing tool.
I have been so busy that my house has gotten a little out of control. Next month we are having family in town. When people are sleeping in your house and getting ready in the bathroom and helping cook in your kitchen, it gives you a whole new perspective on the state of your stuff!
Insert ‘The Deadline’
Because of this deadline, we have been scheduling in some time to clean and organize!
1. We spent one whole morning picking up and decluttering.
It is amazing how many things get out of place and how much clutter builds up!
2. The kids had to take every single thing off their shelves and any surface in their room and dust it all.
They each have one shelf up high that has their trophies on it that doesn’t get dusted regularly. My son complained a bit about having to do this but after he started he said that “we will really need to wash these microfiber clothes when I’m done!” Yuck!
3. I splurged and had cleaners come in
I had them deep clean floorboards, ceiling fans, blinds, and do the bathrooms. Ahhhh…loved this part!
4. My husband and I cleaned the main floor windows – inside and out!
My daughter said it reminded her of the movie UP where they were cleaning windows and saw each other through the glass! I love that movie!
5. I organized my kitchen drawers, cabinets, linen cabinet and pantry!
Wow, how does the silverware drawer get so dirty?! It felt so good to get rid of grandma’s potato ricer that I thought would be so fun to have but we used it once and now it just is taking up room, place mats we haven’t used in a long time and truck and dinosaur cake pans that I used with my boys but can now bless a younger mom and her boys! Freedom!!!! Get rid of things!
6. We washed our carpets.
We even had a slumber party in the living room while the upstairs carpets dried over night! But, the couch is not comfortable sleeping especially when a dog takes up all your foot room!
7. I thought we needed to repaint the walls going down to the basement and up to the bedrooms. They were looking so dingy.
But, in between filling the buckets of water for the carpet cleaner, I took the magic eraser and started washing the wall to the basement. OH MY GOODNESS! Bright and shiny walls lay beneath the grime! Who knew!? I guess that is why it is called spring cleaning…or, ‘company coming’ deadline cleaning!
8. We went through all coats, mittens, hats and boots and outfitted each family member, hung it all up and purged the rest!
9. And more, but who wants to hear every detail…
SET A DEADLINE! GET THINGS DONE! AMAZE yourself!
When I speak, I share a statistic from the American Society of Training and Development…you have a 95% chance of completing a goal if you have a specific accountability appointment set with a person. Examples of a specific accountability appointment: having company in, turning a report in, weighing in, etc.
What specific accountability appointment (deadline) will you set? It really works!
O.K. never liked the idea of a retiree having deadlines, but I’m going to think about setting some for getting my clutter back into the proper places. I think I’ll invite a friend or two to come spend week-ends for starters!!
Thanks again for inspirations!
Haha!! Yes, have some friends over!! That will really get you moving on your guest room!!