True Confessions Wednesday: The Strange Co-existence of Order and Chaos

True Confession #34: My house is a blend of order and chaos. Okay, maybe chaos is too strong a word, but, as I've said before, I'm a work in progress. That means that there are places in my house that are exactly as I want them to be and then there's....

The rest of the house.

While a couple of rooms are consistently under control, order and chaos often co-exist in other rooms. Since we have a small house, this means there may be a lovely, clear organized surface two feet away from an organizing challenge in the works. 

My office is a prime example. I have conquered my desk, long an organizing challenge, and now it's usually cleared off unless I'm working there. On the other hand, the counter across the room (and "across the room" is a generous description) is a perpetual clutter magnet and the space in my house that comes closest to actual chaos. I make progress on a weekend, only to find that, by the end of the week, I've dumped new items there. It's a process, and not one I am winning.

While I'm a big fan of seizing small chunks of time to make progress, there are some areas that need either a continual succession of small chunks of time or a dedicated time block of an hour, an afternoon, or even a weekend.

I think my counter falls into that category.

Since I believe in taking small steps, and since I'm unlikely to have a totally free afternoon in which to tackle this organizing challenge, I'm going to set a small, approachable goal. Each day, I will spend at least 15 minutes de-cluttering my counter (even if that means three increments of five minutes each) until I whip it into the lovely, clear space I want it to be. 

Long-time readers who are feeling a sense of déjà vu are not wrong. Seven years ago, I launched Operation: Clear the Counter and I made progress. But, in the past seven years, I've re-vamped, re-organized and de-cluttered a lot of other spaces in my house and within the piles on my counter are items rendered homeless by those projects. Oh, and I retired, bringing all new piles home with me. 

As someone who writes about organization and has mastered it in many areas, I don't like admitting to harboring chaos. This counter project is a big one -- one that has the potential to be just the tip of the organizing iceberg -- so I'm hoping my small steps will not only yield big successes but also help keep the frustration of an tackling an enormous challenge at bay. And I'm hoping that going public will be yet another nudge to creating that Jerry Seinfeld calendar that truly does provide motivation.

Time to put some STYLE into action, fifteen minutes at a time.