College text books. While there’s no visible sign of progress there has been tremendous progress mentally. I am becoming very comfortable with the idea of being college textbook-free. The undergraduate ones, especially, should be a piece of cake. My MBA books? A little bit tougher. When I’m being rational I realize I started simplify 101 and never referenced ANY OF THEM! (Not even once.) So … what on earth am I holding onto them for? If I didn’t need them when I was starting the business … when will I? (I hear you. Never! You’re absolutely right.) Alright, more mental progress being made as we speak.
Chore system. On this one we’ve made a lot of progress. The biggest breakthrough has been a conceptual agreement with my kids about being paid for chores. They agreed that there are some things they should help out with and do for themselves simply because they are part of the family! Yippee! This is a big first step. So we’ve decided who will do what and when and which chores are for pay and which aren’t. Now we need to decide how much to pay for the “for pay” chores and put this all together in a system that’s easy for my daughter who doesn’t read yet to follow. (And easy for my husband and I to consistently follow up on.) I have some ideas and will report back soon.
Hope you’re doing well on your goals, too!!
Yeah!!!
my update
college textbooks = mental prep. I haven’t opened on since school other than for memory purposes… so I am going to dedicate a scrapbook page or two to the memories that the books evoke – and then they will be gone. The official date of eviction is July 4th weekend when my parents are taking my daughter for the weekend… as of right now, it is locating all of them and deciding what to do with them. Donate them, thrift store, freecycle, 1/2.com, ebay… I want to do what it easiest but would like to make sure they don’t end up in the landfill (very important to me)
As far as my daughter’s chores go… we’ve had 4 days in a row in which she (with my supervision and help) spends 15 minutes with my timer in her room cleaning. Day one was finding the floor, day two was re-finding the floor, realizing it is easier to put things away when you’re done rather than pick them up the next day, sort through books and get rid of the baby books (freecycled those), day 3 was cleaning out the dresser drawers – up until now when I would ask her to put her clothes away she would just shove all of them into whatever drawer she felt like… When we were cleaning I had her choose drawers for each of the clothing types and we talked about how hard it is for her to find the things she loves because they are never where they are “supposed” to be. I think that she has a lightbulb moment – and last night when she was putting clothes away (unsupervised) she put everything away in the right place and hung up her pants on her own.
Day 4 we tackled the top of her dresser. She took everything off, dusted (great Flylady duster that she loves now hangs on a hook in her room – she thinks that is GREAT!) dusted off her special things, put most of it back up, got rid of a few things, freecycled the rest – and her room looks lovely now… Her floor is clean, so clean in fact, she is having her friend sleep over tonight and we don’t have to do that “freak-out” cleaning…
I want to get her into the routine of doing various chores… the chores that my husband and I believe are hers simply because she is part of the family and her room is #1 on that list – it’s going well so far!
Christall
The problem I have with throwing away text books: I just CANNOT throw a book away. I love books. They are beautiful.
I would love to see your chore chart, and how you have decided which chores are paid. thanks!
I was late in signing up (just last week) but there is progress. Project #1 cleaning out the closet in the den/scrapbook room. I have taken a close look to see how much is there and size up the amount of time needed to do the job. I have started going through some of the shoes. Guess what? I found a pair that I had forgotten about and got them out and started wearing them and I sent some to Goodwill. Project #2 De-clutter the kitchen. Nothing much done there as I am working on Project #1 first. This weekend I hope to get some serious work done! There will be more progress to report next update! Thanks Aby for this challenge. It has been just the thing I needed to get moving.