Oh the delight of a clean and organized house. One that is always in motion is seldom, if ever totally all together. I have no idea where I got the idea for Camp Curfman. More than likely it was an idea expanded on and changed around to work for us. It was a HUGE success and continues to be an event at our house It is now on different levels in a different way because well.... life is different, we've added 3 more children and instead of home schooling, everyone is in school.
2009 The original Camp Curfman occurred over the course of 1 week. It was an ALL IN clean out. Everyone had to participate and complete assignments or ELSE. The fun part was the competition and prizes. I geared up for this because the goal was FOR EVERYTHING to be cleaned and organized and for the entire team to work and work hard. All rooms would be emptied of everything and then put back together. Nothing would be left untouched. Mattresses were flipped, beds moved, in fact all furniture moved around to get behind it and under it, curtains down and washed. You get the drill. Everything gets dusted, wood polished, wiped down, scrubbed, etc. Every corner is touched. The key is...EVERYTHING must be removed. If you just look at an area and say to yourself, "that's all good just the way it is" you have missed the point. Your hands must be on it. You must justify it's existence and the reason for letting it remain there. Do you use it? When? When was the last time? If not within 6 months, why not? Do you REALLY, REALLY need it? If it's sentimental, could you not take a photo and prepare an online scrapbook to print and have? Seriously, gathering dust is not the way to hang onto something. In the back on the linen closet? Seriously? If it's there then have to keep up with it even if in the back of your mind.
I come to this event prepared for a win. I do not play to lose! Thick garbage bags are purchased and all cleaning supplies are bought and are ready for battle. I buy $5 gift cards for Sonic, Yogurt shops, and anything I can think of. I buy favorite candy, gum and movie tickets. I have tickets for time with mom or dad. I buy fun Dollar Tree toys (at this point, the kids were 13, 10 and 6). There are choices.
I then came up with challenges and listed them on a big dry erase board. Everything was planned out. Every minute, every project, every goal. It's on a dry erase board so there was plenty of time to "tweak" anything we needed to. We started with each child in his bedroom (the boys shared). We had 15 minutes "splurges", 30 minute "tornados", etc. This is where I would view the room before and view it afterwards and award the one who got the most done with a "prize". This was before I had a smart phone so photos were not easy to take a view.
Closet clean out got the prize for the most garbage bags to donate and to throw away. They then got prizes for organizing the closet. Prizes for organizing their clothes. At this point we didn't have the 15 to 20 items of clothing rule that we now have, but it definitely contributed to that rule. In the closet competition each piece of clothing kept had to have a purpose or a need. Those dirty or in need of repair had to be put in a repair basket to be dealt with later, BUT HAD to be DEALT with before week's end. We started putting a time limit on repair or finding the elusive matching sock or finding the perfect shirt to go with those pants.
We then would clean like crazy!! Baseboards, furniture, carpets. If the room needed to be touched up with paint, then we touched it up (we had paint to match or matched it).
Art and school work that was kept was looked through and organized. It was dated and put it order in a box or accordion style organizer. Currently in 2016 we save everything on Evernote so many pieces of art are simply copied and then saved in an online scrapbook that we have printed when Shutterfly or Snapfish runs a sale (which is often).
Toys had to have all parts, books needed to be in good repair, etc. Everything was sorted into YES, NO or MAYBE. We then went through each pile and went through the YES NO MAYBE's again. NO was tossed and MAYBE got the final run through with YES OR NO. Then the YESES got one more sort to YES OR NO. Done. Yes, that is touching an item for than once, but in a major clean out like this, we need to truly evaluate things and we also do it in rapid fire, not contemplating. Black garage bags are a must. Once closed, they do not open again! They are taken outside and deposed of at the end of the day. Donated or tossed at the donation location. I personally like to donate to organizations that support or local community so I look for those. That means the funds stay in our town and help our own community.
There is not a drawer that is not touched.
We also take breaks. FUN breaks. Like playing outside, playing a board game. We have fun snacks, and plan fun lunches that are out of the ordinary. We have desserts and things we don't normally have. They are all something to look froward to. It's what we work for! We work hard and play hard!
We also trade rooms for things like cleaning carpet or dusting or other things. Just for fun. Call it bribery! I'm okay with that. It is a great tool to get something done, but also teaches having a goal to strive for....candy, free time, board game, great snack. I can go for that.
Bedrooms are the easiest and most fun, but these items belong to the kids. Doing the other rooms is a harder battle because the kids don't have "skin in the game". This is where the prizes get more creative and bigger. The breaks are more fun. They are not into cleaning out our Master Bedroom....but when I give them chances to give thumbs up to my clothes, etc. it is a bit more fun.
The kitchen is well....fun in some ways because they get to organize and put like things together and discuss why this particular item should be here or there. I do let them make changes if they come up with valid reasons. I also let them take game breaks together while I clean something and they score me and see if they agree. They have sign cards for this.
We use a label maker like crazy. Oh how I love my label maker. I bought it a few years before we started this wild party in 2009 and it is still going strong except that it can no longer cut the labels so I have to use scissors. I actually got this 75% off and paid only $4. LOVE!
We donate stuff like crazy. I am not into garage sales to sell. To shop, yes, but I AM DONE with spending hours putting tiny stickers on $1 items to barter all day long with people. I would rather share the love and be done. Some are masters at the garage sale and I say, "Go for what works for you." We have a box of missing things. This is not to be confused with our "Missing Pieces" box (more on that later). Socks with no match, odd things that probably go with something that we may or may not ever find, things to fix, things that don't fit on the HEAVY maybe list. Have cardboard boxes for these and label them. DO NOT BUY boxes. This is not the time for that! At the end of the day we go through it and rid the box of as much as possible. It is amazing how taking things totally out and having to put them back in can make you determine you don't need them, BUT on the other side of the coin, leaving it in the closet because it fits well in that little corner or you don't want to deal with it leaves you collecting stuff you probably DO NOT need. MOVE IT ON OUT.
Do not get into buying organizing products! That great basket, perfect cute cubby box? Don't do it until you clean out! Then determine if something else might work. You will tend to buy organizing tools and then HAVE to fill them. It's a great marketing gimmick and we are going broke "organizing" our stuff! I did determine that scrapbooks would be better in sterlite containers once we cleaned out so we measured and then went and bought them, BUT not before.
By the way, these are the only ones we use. These have been tried and true and we have also used them for years in the ministry we run so we have tried lots of different container. I don't like the other brands due to them not holding up. I also don't like the ones with the added flip around handles just because they can easily break off and then the lids no longer stay on. These are still Sterlite in many cases, but they are not favored by us.
I thought my shelf needed cute baskets until we cleaned and learned that there was a TON of clutter and we actually needed to get rid of the shelf so we could NOT clutter it. Can I get an AMEN?!
How many places in our house have tape? School supplies? Where are the extension cords? batteries? Like items need to live in harmony together, not spread all over the house. DO NOT let yourself go buy a duplicate because you have no idea where that item is. PROBLEM ALERT. That is wasted time and money and you need to combine those things and get rid of what you don't need. And the angels sang..... If like things live together then everyone should know where they go and where they need to be returned. Use clear over the door shoe holders for items like this. You don't have to have a door. Nail those to a wall in a closet if you must. We have one in our cedar closet that contains cords, "moving men", extra things we need occasionally like craft paint brushes, glue sticks and glue gun. Once you finish this week, the family takes a "tour" of the home and you show each person where those items go.
- Don't keep repeating this information to them.
When a child, or ahem...husband asks me where the tape is, I just simply say, "I don't know"! They know this isn't true, but they get the point. They must learn to listen and watch and search on their own. It's that simply. This will make your life easier in the end, BUT only if you go with the LESS IS MORE APPROACH so that no one has to search through a bunch of junk you really don't need.
Missing pieces box.CORDS???!!! OH MY WORD. At the end of this week, all unidentified cords (cords in my house have to have a label wrapped around them and identified....EX. Dad's phone charger) and go into a box. If no one claimed that cord in one month (this event was dated on the calendar), it was tossed into cord purgatory. Forever!
At the end of this event, cleaning items were purged. What is that cleaner? Why do we have it? Did we use it during the clean? There is not going to be a shortage of cleaning supplies. Toss it or give it to a friend IMMEDIATELY, not next week. Yes, you bought it, but if you haven't used it, it is gone. Space in cabinets is freeing. Knowing which cleaner to use is so awesome. TRUST ME ON THIS. DO NOT SAVE THESE THINGS THINKING YOU WILL USE THEM. YOU WON'T.
Why do we spend so much time organizing and re-organizing things we don't use? Because there are so many advertisements and blogs and pinterest posts on great organizing tips and this usually means that we are going to go buy all of those fun, color-coded products and then fill them!
What... On... Earth?
7 years later, we have fewer toys. A LOT fewer. In fact, I don't think we have arrived yet. We need EVEN LESS. We do however, play with what we do have. Our budget for Christmas is less than you would think. WAY less. We will not go broke on kids toys or clothes even. Know what we discovered? The kids love their stuff more! They actually know what they have and cherish it.
This week takes lots of planning, but it is fun planning!
No comments:
Post a Comment