Tuesday

That wind last night! To add to the noise of the wind, British Rail are doing maintenance work on the tracks at night and we had the added accompaniment of the noise of heavy machinery; we were notified about it, but this is the first time I've been disturbed by them working. Anyway, I didn't get much sleep so it's probably going to be a 'take it reasonably easy' sort of day!

It's still blowing a gale outside and is raining from time to time, so my planned 30 minutes in the garden is unlikely to happen today. Which means I'm looking for something easy to do indoors. It might be a good day to sort out one of the kitchen cupboards, and then get my act together and start placing adverts for some of the things I want to sell.

I'm not a tidy person by nature so am pleased to report that I am rocking the 'keeping the living room' tidy rule I've imposed on myself. In the past the thing that made the room look untidy was the piles of stuff on the side table(s). If I'd been asked I'd have said it's all things I'm using and which I'd put away when I'm done, but the reality was that it was mostly things I hadn't bothered to deal with properly on a daily basis. Each time I got round to sorting out these piles of clutter there was very little that I actually used daily, and was mostly things like admin that I'd forgotten about, penfriend letters waiting for a response, recipes torn out of magazines, competitions I was going to enter ... you get the idea?

In my newly furnished and decorated living room I don't want these piles of clutter on all the surfaces - without them the room looks tidy and I don't need to rush round to make the place look presentable when visitors are expected. So this is my new approach ...

... a small basket to hold the things I genuinely want by my side when I've settled in the room - diary, latest book, magazine, planner, pen, pencil, puzzle book. With everything else I have adopted the five minute rule, so if it will take five minutes or less to deal with it's done straight away. Anything that takes longer to complete is added to the to-do list and the associated paperwork or note-to-self is placed by the bottom stair and taken up to the playroom on my next trip upstairs, ready for later action which depending on the urgency may be fitted in as soon as possible or dealt with during my Monday admin session. So far it's working well and I feel on top of things. As part of my night time routine I take a couple of minutes to collect up the stuff that have been dotted around the room during the day and dump it in the basket ready for the next day, which has the added benefit of always coming downstairs in the morning to a tidy room ... I think this is the most important part of the new tidying regime.

The basket was a B&M bargain, cloth covered and fully lined for £3.99 ($5.27). It's 35mm (L) x 28mm (W) x 18 mm (H) and also fits the shelves in the new bedroom cupboard perfectly so I'll be going back to get some more to help sort out storage of undies and the like.