One piece of paper at a time used to be my motto. Only in my office do I have this problem. I stopped buying stuff years ago. I have enough, so I do know what is enough in some areas of my life.

I thought spring, winter, fall cleaning was about doing the heavy cleaning we don't normally do. When did that change?

Doing a little each day saves my day!!

I do agree with that "a little at a time" cleaning idea. Agreeing does not often translate into doing, however.

Many of you will remember that early this spring, I took 5 whole weeks out of my life to clean, file and organize all my clutter and junk. It had gotten to the point where I just couldn't stand it any more.

My most helpful technique? THINK small. Don't think about filing all the papers or cleaning an entire room -- because frankly, that's too depressing and would freeze me into inertia.

I made a list, and everything on the list was micro-managed. So instead of "clean the entire living room," which would have stopped me dead in my tracks, my list read like this:
1. take all the stuff off the window sills.
2. wash/dust the stuff that was on the window sills.
3. wash the window sills.
4. replace stuff onto window sills.
...and I'd cross off each item as I did it, which means I accomplished four things, instead of failing at the one big one ("clean living room") that I would've given up on. A sense of accomplishment is important, and puts you in a much better mood than failure.

And after that, I'd tackle some paperwork:
1. remove and trash all expired coupons.
2. throw out all ads that are older than 2 weeks.
Etc.

Maybe then I'd do 4 more living room chores. Or read/delete emails for 20 minutes. The trick was that the moment I felt overwhelmed, I'd go on to something else. And make a list, so I could cross things off and feel like I was doing good.

Using a timer can also make it a fun "chore." Remember the gameshow called, "Beat the Clock?" Well, its kinda like that.

I like to put the timer on AND some music, that really makes it fun!

I remember when my kids were maybe 5-10. They'd stay in the shower forever, so I set a timer for them to hurry up a bit. It was so much fun. They loved to "beat the clock".

Meredith, I love your methodology - breaking an enormously daunting chore into manageable chunks of smaller tasks. I remember having to do that at my last work place, where the workload was far too overwhelming for one person (it took me 10-hour workdays, weekends and callbacks from vacations to even make a dent in it). I eventually collapsed from exhaustion and burn-out - but I always remembered the wisdom of breaking things down into manageable chunks, so eventually used that in my healing process, breaking down the long arduous crawl out of that depression and dysfunction into smaller, more achievable baby steps.

That's how I do my housework now - make lists of smaller tasks, put on some good music - and reward myself with pieces of chocolate every so often! Don't forget the chocolate!!!

And the music. Music helps create a cleaning mood for me.

Meredith, I'm also a list maker. I love nothing more than checking those babies off.

Have you ever added something that you did to your list just so you could check it off? Someone...please say yes, or am I the only looney soul?

Dotsie, I do that all the time too, and yes, it actually makes me feel good! I LOVE checking off those lists - and being able to check off something that wasn't on there to begin with makes me feel even better.

I have found a great way to clean 'absentmindedly'. I call my children every day in Canada. I hook up the headphones, with phone loop on my waist. I start at one end of the house and by the time I'm at the other end, I haved talked my house clean.


Can't vacuum tho...

Dotsie, I'd put every inane little thing on my list, just so I could check it off! As someone who has often gotten depressed over chores, it really is an attitude-booster when I cross things off (and it isn't a check or a single-line cross-out. It's an angry jumble of lines and squiggles, as in "Gotcha, sucka!")

It's also a good use for all those realtor pads.