Day 9 of No Matter What

The amazing Lisa Nichols, CEO of Motivating the Masses, has a program called "No Matter What - 28 Days to Results".

I am on Day 9 - Tolerations

My Physical Environment is the one where there are the most "Tolerations" in my life at the moment –

I can’t seem to feel comfortable in my home. I feel like there is no space. I don’t feel like I can breathe. There is constant sound, constant movement, constant cleaning. Every time I get a space clean, I turn around and there is a pile on it again. Every time I declutter an area, I step back, and it still seems completely cluttered up.

Some of this is mindset. My kids are home from school for the summer. There is always constant movement in my house. The joy of having four kids is that they are always moving and there is always something going on. Someone is always singing, or playing music, or yelling upstairs to someone, or asking me for something. This is a joy that God has given me. This is part of the blessing of these beautiful little people around me.

The cleaning should be done more often, as well as the decluttering. The children need to take more responsibility for their own messes. This is going to take lots of training on my part. Not only am I going to have to train my kids, but also train myself. We need to be ready to leave somewhere 15 minutes early, so that I can watch them clean up whatever it is that they are playing with before we leave. I will have to stop what I’m doing 15 minutes before we should leave, so that I have time to clean up whatever it is that I’m doing. I am the role model that my kids look to in these types of behaviors. I cannot leave my projects all over the house. I need to put them away when I’m not working on them, and devise a system by which I can remember what I’m working on. Also the cleaning will no longer be done by a housekeeper. Lisa will be going on to bigger and better things, which leaves me with this enormous house to clean all by myself. This is when the delegation and teaching the children to clean house comes in. Once a week, on our Saturday morning pick up, we’re going to have to clean house. Whatever rooms that they are responsible for should be cleaned, not just picked up. I need cleaning checklists for each room that the kids can reference. The first few weeks that we do this, I’ll need to walk through the steps with them and show them how to dust, and how to clean, and how to vacuum, etc. I need to do the floors twice a week separate from this. Probably Monday and Thursday I vacuum/sweep the house and mop the kitchen floor.

Let me get a little more specific on the room that I’m responsible for (Kitchen), tolerations-wise.

Tolerations –

Shoes in the kitchen – Send the kids up to bed with all their shoes each night

Messy walls in the kitchen – Take everything down off the walls in the kitchen and clean them. Put back only the things that bring me joy. Purge or find a home for everything else.

Cluttered countertops in the kitchen – Take everything off the counters in the kitchen and clean them. Put back only the things that bring me joy. Purge or find a home for everything else.

Cluttered refrigerator in the kitchen – Take everything off the refrigerator (front, sides, top, AND insides) and clean it. Put back only the things that bring me joy. Purge or find a home for everything else.

Cluttered cabinets in the kitchen – Tackle each cabinet one at a time. Take everything out of the cabinet, and clean it. Put back only the things that we use or bring me joy. Purge or find a home for everything else.

Dark backsplash & wall paper in the kitchen – Take the wallpaper down off the walls. Clean the walls. Paint the walls.

No overhead lighting or under-cabinet lighting in the kitchen – Design the lighting in the kitchen. Take down the halogen light. Install new overhead lighting. Install new under-cabinet lighting.

Ok, adding all these up is like a week's long list at the very least. I need to narrow down something that I can feel accomplished about TODAY. The lighting situation is going to take $$ that we don't have, skills that I don't currently possess, and time that cannot fit into this beautiful Sunday. Not to mention the fact that the kids will be all over the kitchen today. The backsplash and wallpaper issue is one that will have to be researched (best way to take down wallpaper) and will take time to complete. I need a goal that I can complete today. The countertops should be done after the cupboards, so that there is space to put it all when I'm finding a home for things. So it's either decluttering the walls, the fridge or the cupboards.

I typically grocery shop on my way home from church on Sunday, so Fridge it is. This will give me a very clear idea of what I need at the grocery store too. I've got 1 hour before I need to leave for church. I will not start a project that I cannot finish, so I'll start with the outside of the fridge (top, front, sides) and take a quick inventory of the food inside before church. When I get home with the groceries, I can take that time to do the inside of the fridge.

Reporting back tomorrow.
 - Krista