Sometimes I wonder what I would look like if someone mounted a few time-lapsed photography cameras on the walls of my house, and then broadcast the footage on TV or YouTube. I imagine it would just be hours and hours of high-speed footage of me moving around the house, picking things up, throwing things away, rinsing things out, scrubbing things, dropping things, occasionally pulling my hair into a bun that keeps coming loose, and then sitting down to check my email and blog while the house comes undone behind my back. There would need to be some fun music in the background, like the saxophone diddy from The Benny Hill Show, or an up-tempo Beetles song.
Surely there has to be a better, more efficient way to get things done around here. It's not like I'm trying to be inefficient. I don't like going into the pantry every five seconds to either retrieve a snack for one of my kids or throw something in the garbage/recycling bin. I wish I didn't have to run back inside the house for fifteen items I've forgotten as my children sit, strapped in their car seats, hitting each other and whining.
I've often thought about trying to get more organized, but I don't really know where to start. I kinda like the idea of storage cubicles, but I know I could never get my house to look like a Pottery Barn catalogue (I mean, besides the fact that my house doesn't have nearly enough books, candles or throw blankets lying around). Have you ever really looked through one of catalogues before? They're hysterical. Especially Pottery Barn Kids. I mean, who the hell has a house where the kids rooms are that organized? Even the kid models in these catalogues are sporting clean, unwrinked, stylish clothes. They're even wearing shoes. Everyone knows that a house that clean and orderly is a No Shoes Inside house. But I digress.....
I say the easiest way to organize things is to have everything where you can see it. Keep mail spread across the counter, toys strewn across the floor. Don't ever make the bed--you'll just mess it up again. Keep clothes in the laundry room--that's where they end up after you wear them anyway. Don't bother putting away the dishes--just retrieve them from the dishwasher when you need them and pile them in the sink when you're done. And place your garbage can in the middle of the kitchen where's it's easily accessible. Think of all the time you'd save if you didn't have to keep rushing around to put things away and take things out again. The five minutes here and there would really add up. You'd have enough time to blog, check email, eat, watch a little TV, maybe even have a little sex. Remember, you could just tumble into bed--you wouldn't even have to pause to pull down the comforter! Talk about efficient!
So yeah, that's my advice, the basis of my seminar: Get rid of the Pottery Barn Organizing Cubicles. Get rid of your dressers and your mail holders and your silverware drawers. Keep everything in sight and within reach. And then go get laid.
That'll be three hundred dollars, please.
That's why I have a studio apartment.
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