by Jeff Harrison
Spring cleaning approaches, and I thought I’d share a “system” I learned from my Dad. No, Dad wasn’t some sort of “super cleaner,” in fact he rarely lent a hand to the clean-up effort. He was what was called a “supervisor.”
When our house became overly cluttered (by dad’s standards, which were admittedly not very strict), he would storm around the house, picking up random items from tabletops, counters, the floor…any flat surface which had become piled with “stuff”…and bellow “DOES THIS GO HERE????”
This was the family’s signal…my two brothers, my sister, and me…that it was time to “straighten up.” “DOES THIS GO HERE?” was our guide, and it works to this day. It doesn’t matter where you start; kitchen, living room, bedroom, garage. Just pick something up, and ask, “Does this go here?” If it does, put it back down. If it does NOT, where does it go? A particular shelf? A drawer? A closet? The laundry room? The toolbox? Out in the garage? Back in the house?
The next step is simple: take it there. Then repeat as needed. Simple.
Move from area to area…quickly if you notice Dad is still fuming and glaring. Continue until everything (in sight) is back where it belongs.
At this point, you’ll find the clean-up is not really complete. There will be a pile of dirty dishes and silver to wash (many found under the couch), ditto piles of dirty laundry (many found under the couch or behind doors. C’mon, there were FOUR KIDS in the house!). There will be trash cans filled with old newspapers and magazines and Amazon boxes (we didn’t really have those back in the day, but there are plenty NOW) and food wrappers to take out to the dumpster/can. Go ahead and get that stuff done, it won’t take as long as you fear.
For the first time in a long time, you will see a rare sight: Table tops and counter tops. They’re really THERE, but are usually hidden under piles of accumulated stuff (that doesn’t go there).
A quick note about things that don’t go on the coffee table or counter, but you don’t know WHERE they go. Often, these are impulse flea market or yard sale purchases, and don’t fit a category. The way we dealt with this problem was to have a big cardboard box out in the garage; all the “odd” items went in this box…for OUR next yard sale! Problem solved.
This system works, especially for people who are exhausted from deciding if something “sparks joy.” (Another warning, learned from hard experience: Do NOT just throw stuff into closets. Dad considered closets to be rooms, and he would check after the clean-up to see if we took short-cuts to the cleaning process. It the closet was packed with things that didn’t go there, we would see lots of sparks and very little joy!)
