hmmm, are you a flylady follower by any chance?

her methodology starts with shining the sink on the theory that yes, once you do that, as you say, the rest of the kitchen naturally follows. and it turns out, there's a "shiny sink" in every room. making the bed keeps that room from turning into a giant pile of clothing.

ALWAYS sort the mail immediately. Mail is the great enemy of order. It rises in towering stacks on the kitchen table and threatens to overwhelm everything in its path. Controlling the mail is key.

Most mail is crap, and can be disposed of within minutes. The good stuff is few and far between, and bills go into the bill box.

Even just writing it down makes me feel better.

Clean as you go, no matter what you are doing..cooking, showering and getting ready to leave for the day, whatever.

I work from home but when my day ends and I have to leave the house, I make sure my Master Bathroom is always spotless..it just makes me feel better when I return and see a totally clean bathroom.

Indeed Abby! I don't follow so much anymore but a couple of years ago the philosophy really did the trick for me. i love the idea of setting the timer and focusing!

I wash the dishes (i.e. rinse and toss in dishwasher) as soon as I'm done cooking/eating. And when the dishwasher is full, I run it at night after dinner, that way I don't have to dig in the dishwasher for a plate to handwash because I was too lazy to just turn on the dishwasher.
Unfortunately, this method isn't foolproof when you live a roommate, who doesn't understand that the purpose of having a dishwasher is so you don't have to leave dishes in the sink. :/

i try to make my bed every morning. that makes my whole apartment feel better. i also am strict about putting clothes away and tossing dirty laundry in the hamper. amongst many other things...

im kinda ocd though...i love to clean.

I sweep the living/dining room floor at least every other night and sometimes mop as well - floors get awful very quickly when you have so many pets.

I'm also trying to start removing shoes at the door. We track in all kinds of leaves and dirt, despite our doormat.

I'm sort of a reformed slob, changed over years of semi-earnest attempts to improve. Maxwell's book has some good maintenance lists at the end, including things to do every day, like making the bed, dealing with the mail, etc.

Although the flylady site is so gakky, the concept is fantastic. I recently started getting the flylady emails again (don't get the individual ones, since they'll flood your mailbox; get the summary version). Also, most of that summary email I don't even read, but some of it is a jogger to my inner "cleaning self," which might not come out otherwise.

A couple of flylady ideas that are really working for me right now are:
-two minute clean up of "hotspots"
-instead of doing a big cleaning periodically, do 15 minute cleanings more often (setting the timer). I still do weekly cleanups, but this seems to help most with keeping clutter at bay, preventing big messes and making inroads into things I don't want to do - kind of an icebreaker.

Also, if I'm standing around in the kitchen waiting for my tea water to boil or something like that, I'll spend that time cleaning/decluttering/organizing. Using those tiny amounts of time really work.

I don't have a dishwasher so I have to wash everything by hand so that's something I don't often do daily but most times, I'll get in there and wash everything before I begin making dinner or while the water is boiling or something similar.

For a long time, I would often be found calling and chatting with my sister while washing dishes on a Saturday morning, just something that ended up being. :-)

Last night I took a few minutes and gave the bathroom sink a good scrubbing as it was getting rather yucky and to clean my shower, I'll usually do it on Saturday morning at the end of the shower, I have the scrubbing bubbles, scrub sponge handy and just do it while still in there and then use the hand shower to rinse and then do a final rinse of me before stepping out and it doesn't take long to do. Right now I need to vacuum and such but will wait until I get the tree decorated (it's up and strung with lights but that's it at the moment). I also need to pick up the bedroom too.

This is often the case when I live alone in a job that has me home by 6pm or after and tired so not much gets done in the evenings generally. :-(

Ah well.

My friend is a clutter disaster so we're going to be spending some weekends doing my activity called "Decluttering & A DVD."

Dividing each room into sectors. 1hr decluttering, 1hr of watching a DVD. In an 8hr time period that's 4hrs of decluttering and 2 movies!

I should claim this to be his Christmas present.

Pixie,

Gakky? Please define.

Something that's gakky is something that, upon contact with it, forces you to turn your head slighty askew and make a "gak" sound in the back of your throat, lip curled slightly and an eyebrow raised a little.

Gak also means "barf" so it could just be "barfy."

Well put melanie.

For anyone who wants to make their own assessment, here it is:
http://www.flylady.net/

We swear by Bon Ami in our house. I also hide a few containers of the clean-up "wipes" for quick/last minute rush jobs in the bathroom and under the sink.

ok, i love upstate ... i'm looking at the bon ami site right now for clean-up "wipes" and can't find any. help?

laure, pixie

me too. i confess -- i too am a secret flylady follower. the philosophy's so ingrained in me that i can barely remember the time before flylady (i wasn't a slob so much as confused about what to do and in what order)...i felt it was the first step in the journey that lead to a.t. and going from home to haven. the tricks taught me how to keep my home clean painlessly; a.t.'s taught me how to kick it up a notch & make it pretty to boot.

and yeah, pixie, i totally agree, the site's totally gakky but once i got past that -- and the serious deluge of emails -- it sure beat those marathon cleaning sessions and deciding on what to wear by what was clean!

For me, making the bed every morning is a commitment to mental health and order, and it's really nice to get into a made bed every night. No dishes in the sink overnight -- they are either rinsed & in the dishwasher or handwashed. I am not so good about mail, but I try to sort through the mountain at leasst once a week.

I love the idea of setting the timer and doing a 15 minute stint of cleaning or tidying. That's actually doable.

since i live in los angeles and spend hours in my car, i try to keep it as clutter free as possible. i've made it a rule never to eat in my car and to not leave any boxes, shopping bags, files, papers, CDs, etc in the backseat overnight. makes such a difference!

Like Abby, I started out with FlyLady several years ago and found AT at the tail end of the Color contest last year. A lot of FlyLady's tips have become habits: making my bed is part of my getting dressed routine, which comes right after my shower and straightening up/wiping down the bathroom. When I get home from work, mail in hand, I go directly to the kitchen to unload my lunch bag and open the mail. Bills, things to be filed, etc. go in a pile on the counter - envelopes, inserts, flyers (except for the grocery ads) go in the trash; the filing cabinet (for whatever needs to be kept) is next to the desk (with a designated spot for bills) on the way to my bedroom to stash my totebag in a sort of landing area (with space for library books or whatever else needs to be transported somewhere else). I then head back to the kitchen and wash my lunch containers with one of those sponge/brush things with the handle that contains dishwashing liquid and do a run-thru of the house checking hotspots, etc.

Fortunately, my new husband has the same habits - for both of us the biggest problem is/has been 'stuff' and clutter - which we're working on as we combine households.

I've already bookmarked AT on his computer (much newer than mine) and will be calling on the community here for help after the holidays as we start getting ready to sell the house. The walls are white, the bathroom and kitchen have gray accents, the carpet is tan and the furniture is brown striped. Sigh. I'm going to need lots of help...

I think this will be a first (OCD); I spray water on the lines my sofa bed makes in the carpet and then vacuum. What can I say my Mother was a neat freak.

I really get a sense of inner calm when I walk into my studio apt., now you know why, and and everything look the way I like it.

Love Apt.Therapy.

susan

I despise a dirty shower and I hate cleaning a shower even more. Nothing worse than scrubbing soap scum off the shower walls. So, I keep a cleaning towel in the shower and wipe it down every time before getting out. It takes but a second. The shower is always clean. And I never have to scrub. I also keep a spray bottle of vinegar in the shower. On occasion I give it a light spray of vinegar before wiping it down. Simple...?

I love putting away dishes in the morning, I let them drip dry overnight and while I;m drinking my coffee and packing my bag, I put away all the dishes and somehow it feels like I instantly made the kitchen ok for me to leave!

My "one simple thing" is keeping a magic eraser in the shower...When I'm done with my shower, with the water still running, I grab the eraser and wipe down the walls and run it along the top sides of the tub, then heading into the basin feeling with my fingers to make sure I got the soap scum build up, and finally wipe it across the bottom. I also rub it on the faucet handle. The tile stays shiny for a good week or two and it only takes about two minutes to scrub everything down. The running shower water then drains everything away! This prevents having to do a big shower scrub later while kneeling on the tile and leaning over the side of the tub...uncomfortable to say the least and I always got more wet than if I had just taken a shower. I also use the magic eraser to get the mildew off the shower curtain before it gets bad. Those things are the best invention ever! I haven't had soap scum in ages!

If i don't feel like cleaning, I start with something simple, like putting a few things away....then I think, oh it's just take a minute to wipe down the counter...and if the counter is clean I may as well wipe down the faucet...and now that the counter and faucet are clean I can't very well leave the mirror dirty....and on it goes until my whole place is clean! I also save effort by not breaking stride...if I am cleaning in the living room and carry something from the living room to the kitchen, I start cleaning in the kitchen...if I need to bring something from the kitchen to the bathroom, I clean in the bathroom. That way, even if I decide to quit in the middle, every room got touched in some way.

A shiny sink is a happy sink.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spins_lps/2291512891/

I cannot fathom leaving dishes unwashed, counters and stove unwiped--this is simply part of cooking. As much as possible, I clean while cooking, and never need to spend more than a few minutes cleaning after the meal is over. The result is a room that is organized, hospitable, and ready for whatever cooking whim or project comes next.

I challenge myself once a day to look at a flat surface - I'm guilty on nearly all of them - and say to myself, 'Hmmm, what doesn't belong here?' The tape measure and nightgown on the computer desk? The flower pots and seeds on the dining table? Teach yourself to look for these things and take them to their rightful home.

Always clean while cooking. When you serve dinner and the only thing left in the sinkk is two dishes, two forks and two glasses is much easier to get to clean it. Also, what good is standing in front of the stove watching the rice cook?

Clean as you go, especially when cooking. But if expecting company my routine is clean the house before the kitchen....mostly the areas that people will see, bathroom and entry way etc. Leave the kitchen for last. If you clean up after yourself in the kitchen as you go then all you really need to do prior to company is the kitchen sink, countertops and refrigerator (outside) and the floor.......Actually having company over for dinner etc, forces me to clean. It's all good.

I wax my shower with turtle wax (the green liquid kind) about every six months or so - it takes care of the soap scum problem, and you really only have to do a deep clean before you wax again. I don't really have a mold/mildew problem, so I'm not sure if you should use this method if you don't have good ventilation, but it works in my current place!

When stuff gets ahead of me, I tell myself: "If you can't do a lot, do a little." Then that one thing I did, the cleared countertop or the neat bed, makes the next thing more doable.

I am a sucker for any testimonials in FlyLady's summary email.

But, what turned me around was organizedhome.com. (I know there are denizens here on AT!) A very NON-gakky site.

The message boards were my mainstay in a really rough time. Alas for me, Cynthia has retired from that aspect, but she still has the main site.

Many of us from the old OH boards have formed new message board sites.

I like thinking of "routines" as "anchors."

One of the biggest problems I have, which has a chain reaction effect on my bedroom, is lack of closet space - even though I have a neatly organized and large closet. I tend to collect a lot of clothing and shoes (a passion, not a problem :) ) so every few months I carefully designate items that can be donated to goodwill or go to a clothing exchange/vintage store. This helps me maintain order in the closet realm and prevents me from leaving a heap of clothing sitting about my room in limbo, waiting for a final destination place.

I’m also new to the site and love love love it!

Here's a revolutionary new sink that makes kitchen clean up -- and kitchen style -- so much easier:

http://jgkitchens.blogspot.com/2009/11/molten-gold-sink-supreme.html.

It won an award at the Kitchen/Bath Industry Show!