BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Cleaning Set Aside a Power Hour

One of the books I was just reading talked about setting up a "power hour". You dedicate an hour - and you use a timer - to plow through some sort of task you want to do. So you look at a room that needs cleaning and then you set aside an hour and you just blast through it. The book said that you can really accomplish a lot if you focus like that.

Has anyone tried that? Have they made a dent in a room?

Our kitchen is actually fairly clean now - but it seems to accumulate junk so easily! It's a struggle not to leave stuff laying around in there ...

Chances are that if a space is chronically disorganized and cluttered, you're not organizing around the way you are and the way you live--you're organizing it the way you think it SHOULD BE. That's not going to solve the problem. I'm sure the organization forum or site could be a huge help in this area, but yeah--it's not going to get any better until you really go after the source.

I'm not a fan of that length of time for cleaning unless you have a room that's literally not livable--like windows or walking spaces are blocked, etc. An hour is LONG. I might do 20 minutes, break for 10, 20 minutes, break for 10, etc. People are easily overwhelmed with cleaning and an hour--just hearing it--is daunting.

If your kitchen organization problem is paper-related (as it usually is), try the JOYS system (Just Organize Your Stuff--seriously wish I could get referral credits for this thing). Get the inexpensive Filing Joys which comes with a 10-page, 10-step manual that will change how you look at all the paper in your home. I'm extremely organized and this was just different in a way that finally made my paper mayhem tame. Really--I'm a paper HOARDER and this worked. It took time to get it all in order per the steps (but really, my piles had piles). It's been a year and my stuff has never been that out of control again.