Or maybe until you decide to tackle spring cleaning.

Helping her clean really motivated me to clear out my own place. We have way too much stuff in a tiny, one-bedroom condo. And it’s high time we got rid of over ten years of clutter. That’s exactly what we’re doing.

We started with our dining room, where we had a small chest freezer. Due to a faulty wall plug, we haven’t had any food in it for a while. So we moved it onto the balcony and out of the way. We do plan on using it again, but I think it’ll be able to stay out there as long as we run a plug out there. Then we removed an old desk that wasn’t used and I emptied an entire bookshelf to clear up some space.

For the books, we’re deciding which books we will keep for our new place, and which ones we can do without. We have a Goodwill bookstore across the street, which also accepts donations. It’s a perfect place to drop off our books or any other donations we need to make.

It’s a slow process. I’m not rushing to get it all done in a weekend. But I find that I’m more willing to give things up. As I pulled out a t-shirt this afternoon, I took five minutes to remove shirts I don’t wear or that don’t fit. It’s one drawer, but it’s one less thing to do.

I find that I love being able to pile things up for donations. Seeing the clutter slowly disappear. It’s awesome. We are also keeping more valuable things to list on craigslist.org. In the last month we’ve sold a few things. It’s not a lot of money, but every little bit goes into our moving fund.

The spring cleaning bug has hit me and I’m not fighting it one bit. I’m using the momentum to clear things out. The more ordered my surroundings are, the easier it is for me to see what I really need to do. I love that feeling.

Have you started spring cleaning? Do you clear out each year? Quarterly?

image: taken in Belize

If you don’t schedule in the time to do your most important tasks of the day, you might not get them done. Without that specific time slot when I need to be doing “X” it is easy to get distracted with little things. Like e-mail. Or laundry. (Not to mention Twitter and Plurk!)

Why you should calendar
The whole point of calendaring your day is to make sure you actually make time for the things you say are important (and to remember things).

Write down that phone call you need to make at 10am, that play date at 1pm, that doctor’s appointment next week. But don’t forget that project that’s coming due very soon, that you haven’t even started yet. Break it down into manageable pieces and it won’t seem so overwhelming. Make steady progress and before you know it, it’s done!

A two week experiment
Try this for the next two weeks: each day, figure out the five most important things that you need to accomplish that day. Then schedule time for them on your calendar. Schedule it around childcare and e-mail and errands. Actually block out time where you concentrate on that task.

And when that time comes, work on the task. If you only have a 1/2 hour, then see how much you can get done in a 1/2 hour. Don’t answer e-mail. Don’t pick up the phone. Just stick to your calendar.

Didn’t get your task done in the allotted time? That’s okay. Did you make progress? That’s the important part.

A new way of thinking
You don’t have to calendar yourself to death, scheduling every minute of your day. Just think of your day in chunks of time and do what you can in those chunks. If you’re not used to it, it may take some time. Allow yourself some leeway in learning a new way of doing things. And keep some flexibility. We all know how things can change on the fly when there are kids involved!

Are you the type that hates to have your day scheduled? Try just jotting down your most important tasks and refer back to it throughout the day to make sure you’re making progress.

We want you to find things that work for you – and not everything will. But you won’t know until you try it! So how do you use your calendar? Do you only list kid activities and appointments? Do you block time for projects? Is your calendar working for you? Why or why not?