"Before" Pictures (CNP #1)

 Let me begin this blog entry by saying that I really do strive towards organization. I daydream about it. I regular dream about it. I crave it with every sinew in my body. Here is proof. This is something I taped to the inside of my bedroom door several months ago to remind myself of the tenets of people who have their $#@% together.

All five rules make fantastic and wonderful sense. I learned Rule 1 the hard way, by ignoring lots of important mail notifications. Then, of course, I lost money paying to fix the kind of mistakes you make when you ignore lots of important mail notifications.

I still need to enforce Rule 2, which to me is more important than the following three rules because my job has no place taking up residence in my house. My job needs to stay at my job. An adult should never have a pile of, say, thirty-some-odd three-dimensional geometry projects sitting in a reusable bag on the floor of her bedroom. It's stress-inducing. And unsightly.

Every time I take a pair of socks off and haphazardly toss them to the ground in front of my bed, it's like a giant "SCREW YOU" to Rule 3. At this point, my drawers don't shut, my closet stays open, and homeless garments (both clean and dirty) mingle together on the hardwood floor. This is the sort of state of exisitence you would expect from a college kid. If you are an adult and you have to do the "sniff test" before determining whether clothes have been laundered or worn, you're doing something wrong.

I guess if there's one thing I do really well most of the time it's Rule 4. The yoga mat usually only has a few things on it that I can simply sweep to the side. It's a bit like plowing a driveway, though. You can clear it well, but the snow has to go somewhere. Like the snow, stuff on the yoga mat often gets shoved unpoetically to the side and left there. Except my stuff doesn't melt and go away.

Rule 5 is a great way to assure that my bags don't become embarrassing for me to carry in public. You know how some gals will ask their friends, "Hey, could you just go into my bag and find... "? I will never, ever ask anyone to do that. If you peeked into one of my bag pockets, you'd understand. I'll leave it at that.

I'm sure you're dying to see the before pictures. I'm embarrassed to post them. But if I'm going to do this, you'll need to see a point of reference to understand the progress I'll have made by the end of the week. See below.

To the right, you'll see my room in all its glory. This is my natural habitat. You can see my green yoga mat in the lower middle of the photo. Looks as if the mayhem is creeping and seeping into the yoga mat's personal space

Below that, you'll see my blatant disregard for Rule 1 (the one about taking care of my mail when I receive it).

If these pictures made your jaw drop, well... that's just the way it is right now. I wish I could say this were a joke and I just pilfered these pictures from the interwebs to be funny. But saying so would make me a horrible liar.

Tell me, could you concentrate in this physical space? Well, could you? I certainly can't. If I want to do anything worthwhile this summer, I'd like to first take care of my environment. It will be so much easier for my brain to relax once that's under control and has a system in place.

Right now, I'm going to eat some soy ice cream and blueberries to cool off. Then I'll do some yoga next to my window fan. Then, I'll make a list of stuff to clean and just dive in.

Good luck to me. And to you, if this has inspired you to also tidy up somewhere.

CNP #1: Decluttering My Mind

Anyone who's ever stepped foot inside my room or inside my classroom... or, well, even inside my car will immediately know that I'm not the clean type. Oh, what gave it away? I guess it depends where you are. Was it the mountain of clothing and bags? (room) The piles and piles of papers hiding my desk? (classroom) Perhaps, balled up gum and food wrappers in the middle console? (car) Or the eighth-inch-thick skin of dust covering all surfaces? (also car) Perhaps you were even in one of those locations with me while I was trying to locate something I'd misplaced. Hey, it happens.

By the way, has anyone seen my driver's license? No really, I lost it this week.



Lately, I've really enjoyed thinking of myself as a neat and orderly woman stuck in a lazy person's body. I think that might be closer to the truth than any other explanation. I say this because there are two major types of cluttered people: (1) There are the cluttered people who are not bothered by clutter and (2) there are people whose brains feel cluttered when the physical space around them is cluttered.

I am the second type.

Clutter for me, then, represents two realms: environmental and mental.

Clearing environmental clutter is easy. You pick $#@& up.

Clearing mental clutter is a whole different ballgame. In fact, although it may seem in my case that clearing my mental clutter is wholly dependent on first clearing environmental clutter, that is not true. While this helps, for sure, it isn't the only factor. I have this candle that says the following: Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. Sounds awesome, right? Definitely. Here's how I do it. One word. Yoga.

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Cool New Project #1: Decluttering My Mind

Mental Objectives: (1) Practice forty-five minutes to an hour of yoga daily.

Environmental Objectives: (1) Take "before" pictures of a couple physical spaces that are cluttered, and analyze them here. (2) Pick $#@& up. (3) Take "after" pictures and describe my experience/process of decluttering. (4) Develop plans to keep those areas clutter free moving forward.

Timeline: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Possible Roadblocks: Laziness, cool summer activities, procrastination.

If you would like to join me, pick a mental/environmental area of your life that you would like to declutter this week and post comments about your progress below.

Or you can simply post words of encouragement.

Kristy

And so it all begins...

This is the first post of what I hope to be and imagine could be a really cool new project. The idea behind this blog is two-fold.

(1) Give myself the necessary kick-in-the-pants and accountability I need to get projects (big and small) started and finished.

(2) Get others "on board" with me who will support my various projects and/or simultaneously have their own projects supported as well.

My vision is this: A cool new project theme, set of objectives, and timeline for completion will be posted to this blog. Readers and followers will have the option to "join" me in my project, simply support it, or wait for the next one. At the completion of the project, I will post my results or thoughts, and anyone joining in is welcome to also post comments about their results in their own related projects. Once one project is over, another cool new project will be proposed, posted, and open for camaraderie and commentary. Simple as that!

Happy Trails,

Kristy