{"id":18790,"date":"2011-09-26T12:00:58","date_gmt":"2011-09-26T16:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/?p=18790"},"modified":"2018-10-15T12:48:23","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T16:48:23","slug":"taming-the-area-that-always-gets-messy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/taming-the-area-that-always-gets-messy\/","title":{"rendered":"Taming the Area that Always Gets Messy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following was written by contributing writer Angie.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It is my sincere hope that you would read a title like that and think, “What does she mean by that? I don’t have an area like that?” If so, then kudos to you on your organization and housekeeping skills. However, if you’re anything like me, the very mention of hot spots in your home or an area that is always messy immediately makes you shake your head knowingly, as you picture that area in your mind.<\/p>\n

In my home, we have several of these areas, unfortunately.\u00a0 The two that are of the most concern to me are the kitchen counter and my craft room<\/a>. I believe this is because they are the areas that I know I hold the most culpability in their messiness.<\/p>\n

If you also have these kinds of issues, I suspect you hope that this is where I will come in and share my life-changing organization strategy or maybe even the product to buy that will solve all of your problems. We’ve all thought that we’ve found those things before, haven’t we? It’s that one product that will change us from disorganized creative-types into Suzie Homemaker.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but while you might find a product that will help and you might find a method that will make things better, a product or method probably isn’t the answer. If you have the same area that gets messy time and time again despite all of the new baskets and organizers, despite every new method you’ve read about on blogs, it’s likely that you need to look at that area in a new way.<\/p>\n

Things to Consider about Your Habitually Messy Area:<\/h3>\n

1. What is my purpose with this space? What goal do I want to accomplish that I need this space for?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you are habitually letting an area get too messy, it might be that you just haven’t clarified what you really want to do in that space. Maybe you need to reconsider how you’re using that space. Or, perhaps thinking through it it will just bring you some clarity on what your goals are for the space.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In the case of my craft room, my goal is that I would like to be able to use the desk area to work on a variety of projects. I would like be able to use it at any time, and not have to clear off an area to work. In addition to this, I would like my daughter to be able to sit and work with me, which means that my goal must include keeping most of the desk area clear of supplies.<\/p>\n

Cementing your goals and purpose in your head puts us in the right mind set for our second consideration.<\/p>\n

2. What things are in this space that don’t add to the purpose of this space? Or even worse yet – what are things that are in this space that take away from the purpose of this space?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This should be used as a trigger to look around and ask yourself, “If my purpose is (X), then why do I keep this item here?” Not only do extra items add to the mess, but it keeps you away from meeting the purpose of this area.<\/p>\n

Let’s use my kitchen counter as an example for this one. My purpose is to have a space where I can do food prep, as well as to serve as a home for some of my small appliances. While this would seem to be obvious, I need to ask myself why we have a chess board sitting at one end of it. Does that help me meet my goals for the space? Is there anywhere else the chess set can go?<\/p>\n

3. Is there anything I need to add to this area to help meet my purpose?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I know that a lot of us want to skip right to this step. You might see a set of baskets in a store and then you think, “This set of baskets will be the answer to organizing my office!”<\/p>\n

Don’t do this! <\/strong>Clarify your purpose first, then clear out items you don’t need, and then (and only then) should you add more items. Ideally, you have thought through your plan of why it is going to be helpful to add these things.<\/p>\n

In my craft room, I once added a set of drawers that could hold 12×12 paper. While I already had trays for paper on my desk top, they took up too much room. They took away from my purpose of being able to work any time I wanted to with my daughter next to me, because there just wasn’t enough room. When I moved them out, then I was able to put in one tall tower of these 12×12 drawers and opened up a lot of work space.<\/p>\n

These three, simple steps can help solve almost any problem spot in your house.<\/strong> However, it’s also vital to keep in mind that if you have a habitually messy area, then it will be a constant battle. It won’t be something you do just once. Be prepared to constantly reconsider your goals (in case they change), look for things that aren’t meeting that goal (or are getting in the way of the goal), and (only every so often) consider if there is something you want to add to the area to help you better meet your goal for the space.<\/p>\n

What are some of your favorite tips for keeping problem areas clean?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Angie, a contributing writer at The Happy Housewife, is a homeschooling mom to three children and writes about everything that happens in their lives between all the loads of laundry at >Many Little Blessings<\/a>. She is also the founder of The Homeschool Classroom<\/a>, Catholic Mothers Online<\/a>, Tiny Owl {Designs}, and Just a Tiny Owl<\/a> {Etsy shop}.<\/strong><\/em>
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The following was written by contributing writer Angie. It is my sincere hope that you would read a title like that and think, “What does she mean by that? I don’t have an area like that?” If so, then kudos to you on your organization and housekeeping skills. However, if you’re anything like me, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2555],"class_list":{"0":"post-18790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tips-and-tricks","8":"tag-cleaning","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18790"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31809,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18790\/revisions\/31809"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thehappyhousewife.com\/home-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}