At our household we have pitch pile day. All of those piles of papers, magazines, junk drawers – well if they don’t get taken care of year after year, what a mess you’d be in – think Pigpen’s house!

I love these ones from Pottery Barn.

Twice a year (at the least) in the Spring and Fall we pitch the piles.  We get out a big trash bag and get to it.  It is the best feeling afterward – so nice and organized.

Okay – so mine doesn’t really look like any of those  - but a girl can dream!

The piles get sorted 3 ways.  A Keep Pile - to be filed, A Move Pile – moved to an appropriate room/place, and my favorite the Trash Pile!

Some of us are born organizers.  Some are not.  When I was little my mom was working and she put my sister and I in daycare.  Part of her job was working with other children – so she felt terribly guilty for spending time with other kids.  Me?  I didn’t mind at all.  I have great memories of the fun I had there.  So once a week when she’d pick us up we got a new Matchbox car – it was great!  I’d even gotten to the point where I had a carrying collection box.  My favorite thing to do with the Matchbox Cars was to organize them by color in the box.

A born organizer I guess!  My sister was not.  Growing up her room was Pigpen’s house – you couldn’t see anything, there were piles and unorganized clutter everywhere.  But the good news is as a wife and mother now in charge of her own household she is organized and uncluttered! My point being that it’s our duty as both husband and wife to keep a tidy house – now it doesn’t need to be Martha Clean, but organized enough to be able to find things you need.

In order to make your pitch pile day effective, you just need some organization tools. You’ll need some filing drawers, shelving, and large & small rubber containers, which can be found inexpensively at your local Target or Walmart.  And the large heavy duty black trash bags are great for the Trash pile.

To get Pitch Pile Day going, pick the room you are going to start in.  Say the office.  If there are piles and papers everywhere, just start sorting.  Just three piles – Keep, Move, Trash.  If it ends up in the keep pile use the organization tools to store it in the office.  Put the Move pile things into the appropriate rooms in your house.  And then dump that hopefully large Trash pile out!  I find that when you really sit down to organize you will be surprised at how much of it really is trash. Yes, this project will take you longer than the usual tidying up, but it will be worth it.  And if you are consistent about doing it at least twice a year it will be easy to maintain!

Helping you achieve your Domestic Success!

Tags: Organizing your house

This entry was posted on Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 10:57 am and is filed under Household Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.