A Quick Exercise or Experiment

Do you reorganize things? Ever since I was a kid I constantly found myself rearranging everything I owned. I would move my bed to different spots in my bedroom, shift my toys/books/furniture into other ways, and I would spend HOURS in one spot, arranging small items into a visually comprehensible schematic.

I'll be the first to admit that I am not only a perfectionist as well as a slob. I get lazy because cleaning takes SO long and I don't want to waste the time to do something that I know will get dirty again. But! Whenever I reorganize my things I find that I am MUCH more willing to put things back into place for longer periods of time. Maybe this has kept my sanity?

Anyways, When was the last time you reorganized yourself?

I'm still tackling the kitchen one piece at a time. Today I decided it would be the dishes.

Tim and I do not have a dishwasher. In fact, I haven't used a dishwasher in about 3-4 years. Tim thinks this is the worst thing that could ever happen, but I'm less inclined to agree. Tim's mother bought an entire full course set of dishes for Tim when he moved out of his house but when there are only two people who LIVE in said house, there is no reason to have tons and tons of dishes. We barely entertain and if we do, well, most often it doesn't include food.

So, with all these dishes it is easy to grab one clean plate to eat on rather than clean a dirty one. With this, we let the plates stack up until we are out of dishes! We have such little counterspace that the dishes pile up EVERYWHERE so suddenly we stop cooking and opt to eat out, or get into arguments about who gets to "clean the dishes this time." At this point, it becomes a 30-40 minute chore and who really wants to do that?

My Solution: Get Rid of My Dishes

I discussed with Tim about just getting rid of them but he was not comfortable with the idea. So, instead, I am going to "hid" the dishes as a little experiment. If we find that we actually spend MORE time ignoring the dishes because we have less, then we'll go back to a more "functional" way of living.

So I cut my number of plates/dishes/bowls in half. 8 plates when to 4, 6 "useless" bowls became three, and the tiny plates no one uses cut into 3.

Then, I reorganized my dishes! I critically thought of efficient organization as I removed plates. I wanted to create a system where I wouldn't have to move ANYTHING in order to access a specific dish I want/glass. I didn't accomplish this precisely, mostly because half one shelf of the cupboard is full of "drink" glasses, but I tried my best.

Before

After

I'll let you know how this experiment went!!