Category: decluttering

Math…and Dishes…. Dishes Math
decluttering

Math…and Dishes…. Dishes Math

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Dishes Math

Dana K. White are I are best friends. She doesn’t know that. In fact, we have never met. I discovered her podcast when a friend mentioned it to me. I LOVE systems. I LOVE plans. I HATE cleaning my house. I am the queen of spending 2 hours planning how to get and keep my house clean and then running out of energy before I even start.

I have listened to several different cleaning and organizing gurus and mapped out my whole house. Dividing it into zones, days, charts, lists, etc. But at the end of the day, my house was a mess and I was exhausted.

The systems and charts just weren’t working and I was left feeling like a failure. Until I found Dana. She has a podcast called “A Slob Comes Clean”. The title alone is a little scary. Was I really a slob? Not a title anyone wants to have. But– her way of motivating me and teaching me about how to clean and declutter my house made sense to me.

One of the things she talks about is dishes math. I timed myself today. 22 minutes. 22 minutes is all it took for me to do the dishes from yesterday because I did all of my dishes yesterday too. Dishes math is not a sum. It’s a product. The time it takes to do the dishes multiplies as the days go by. If one day takes me 22 minutes, I always thought 2 days would take me 44. Made sense to me, right? But it doesn’t.

One day of dishes

I wondered why it was SO hard to keep on top of my housework. I would wait 2-3 days to do the dishes because I was tired. I wasn’t in the mood. I didn’t feel like it. 22 minutes is all it would have taken to keep on top of things. But– if I waited until day 2? It takes me at least an hour. Day 3? Almost 2 hours– and I am usually trying to wash them while making dinner because I realized we don’t have enough plates to feed everyone.

22 minutes later

So every time I don’t feel like doing the dishes, I remind myself of dishes math. I remind myself that I will spend LESS time over the course of the week if I just do the dishes!

Check out her blog below!

https://www.aslobcomesclean.com/

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decluttering

Decluttering My Life

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Getting Rid of Excess

Learning that less is more

When I quit my job as an Employee Health Nurse, I assumed I would go from one job to another. There are hundreds of job openings, so getting another job shouldn’t be that hard….

But, God had other plans.

I am the type of person and will go with the flow of just about any plan– but I want to know what the plan is. I knew God was giving me permission to leave my job. It was VERY stressful and grew into a toxic work environment. I was bringing that stress home and it wasn’t fair to my family or myself. I need to get rid of it. I am very thankful to be in a position where I knew we could live on one income. We had done it for 7+ years before. We could do it again if we needed to.

What did I want to do with my life? Did I still want to be a nurse? I wasn’t sure. I am still not sure. I enjoyed having my own office at work. I enjoyed working with the spreadsheets I used to track everything. I loved being organized. And I was. At work. At home, my life was a mess. I never knew where anything was. The laundry and dishes were a never-ending monster I just couldn’t get on top of. I was a terrible housekeeper. Or was I??

What I have learned is that a good majority of my problem was that I was trying to do too much. I had too much to manage. Schedules, work, things, people. We are not made to do it all! This reminds us that we are not God. We need him and we need someone to constantly clean up the messes we make in our lives.

I have begun to try and get rid of excess in my life. Excess commitments, excess things, excess stress. Getting rid of excess has allowed me to begin to focus on what God has for me. What God wants for me. He wants me to take time every day with him. To read and listen to his Word. To spend time in prayer. When we have every minute of our day filled with commitments and things, it is easy to drown Him out!

I have been going through my house, room-by-room, getting rid of excess. Making my home a beautiful place that brings rest and peace, instead of chaos and clutter. I have listened to hours of the podcast by Dana K. White called “A slob comes clean”. She has taught me powerful insights on how to manage your home without losing your mind. (Which is the title of one of her books and it can be found on Amazon).

Decluttered and decorated living room