Hot Spots

It seems as though I have had a rough time getting the house back into order after Christmas. I know it's January 12 and everyone has Christmas tucked away and their house back to like it never came around. I still have gift bags in a pile, a couple bags of ornaments that need to be put away and a cluttered house that half needs to go to a thrift store. It makes me feel lausy living in such clutter. I seem to always post help me things on Facebook because I have a few great friends on there that will give their helping advise when I ask for it. I had one friend tell me that Flylady was a great way to get started in de-cluttering my life and home. Thanks Michelle for tell me about Flylady! The step for day 1 was to have a shining sink. I usually ALWAYS have a super clean sink, but she gave instructions on how to make it shine like it was brand new. She said that you should wipe it dry everytime you use the sink. I have done a good job so far in doing that. It makes me feel great at night when I go to bed and wake up in the morning that have a clean and shining sink! I ended up skipping a few days because they was motivational steps and one of them required wearing shoes inside. That is against one of my house rules..no wearing shoes in the house. So, I skipped down to about day 6 and it said to tackle the hot spots in the house...I am not good at all this fancy blogging stuff, so I will just paste in here what she says about hot spots...

A Hot Spot is an area, when left unattended will gradually take over. My favorite analogy is of a hot spot in a forest fire, if left alone it will eventually get out of hand and burn up the whole forest. This is what happens in our homes. If left unattended, the hot spot will grow and take over the whole room as well as making the house look awful. When you walk into a room, the hot spot is the first thing you see. Your eyes are locked on it. Over the years my hot spot has migrated. As a child it was a chair in my bedroom. I would pile it to the ceiling. Right now I have two hot spots in my home: the dining room table and the bed in the extra bedroom. The dining room table is a staging area. We put the unopened mail there, as well as any thing that needs to go to the basement. Some times you cannot see the top of the table. This is the first thing I see when I walk into the kitchen. Granted, the pile has only been there since last night, but if I don't deal with it first thing in the morning, it will collect many more items by evening. CLUTTER ATTRACTS CLUTTER. The Bed in the extra bed room is just the same. I use it as a place to put things that don't have a home. Do you have areas like this that continue to grow if left alone? Does the rest of the family see this as a place to put things when they do not want to put them where they belong? It is our job to NIP this in the bud. Get rid of that pile, find the surface underneath, and stop the Hot Spot from becoming a raging Clutter inferno! - FlyLady

One of our main hotspots is the shoe basket right beside the front door. We always kick our shoes off there as soon as we walk in the door. Our computer desk would be the next place that attracts most everything else other than clothing. Our coat rack would have to be next. Every coat gets thrown on it and to be honest, it looks like a bunch of slobs live here. I may not be doing the exact steps that are given to get your home back in order, but I am doing them in the order that they give. Usually, once I get on a cleaning frenzy, it's hard to stop. So, I could possibly have 4 days or more, completed in one.