A Little Lesson in Keeping a Home Under Control for the Long Haul: One Small Step at a Time

When I hear from readers who do the Cure, one of the things they often say is that the thought of getting a whole home clean and under control is so daunting that they don’t even want to start, but when it’s broken up into bite-size chores, they actually want to do MORE after completing a task, not less. I think there is something to this reverse psychology that we pull on ourselves. I’m not sure why this little-by-little mindset is so successful in motivating us to GSD, but let’s not question it. Let’s go with it. I have the perfect just-right-sized job to for you to do today that should give you a small boost of confidence and prove my point.

Choose a drawer anywhere in your home. It could be a sock or undies drawer, a jumbled makeup drawer in the bathroom, one in the living room or maybe even the dreaded “take-out menu” drawer. Maybe you want to clear your t-shirt drawer or where you store the remotes. Doesn’t matter, really. Pick any drawer and go to work – toss what you should (you’ll know it when you see it), move stuff you don’t need to the outbox, do a quick clean of the bottom of the drawer with a damp cloth, replace the keepers and pat yourself on the back. Done!

Pause for a sec and consider the chore you just completed. It probably was not so bad to do, it’s nice to have a cleared drawer now and you still have plenty of time to do other things. Pat yourself on the back and remember this feeling.

Then, rinse and repeat with a new drawer on a regular basis (one a week or one a month, up to you! no rush) and you’ll find that this chore gets faster and easier over time until you are someone who –miraculously – no longer has cluttery drawers.

One of the best January Cure takeaways is the realization that paying a little bit of attention to your home on the regular is like putting gas in the tank of your car; it’s the fuel it needs to keep on running smoothly. Your place doesn’t need a full overhaul every time, just a little bit of maintenance will keep it in good shape.

But for today, stop after your drawer clearout (don’t go crazy now – stick to the pace and just do one), share your progress with us all – which drawer got the treatment and how did it go?