I live in an 800-square foot apartment with my boyfriend and our two cats, and because it's a small space with not all that much storage, things tend to get out of order (and out of hand) pretty easily. I'm not a total neat freak, but I do like to keep things organised, so there's one specific method I've adopted in the time we've been living here to make sure that our home stays tidy, that we do the projects we said we would when we moved in, and, as Marie Kondo would approve of, are keeping only the things that "spark joy" around us.
Of course, there are daily, weekly, and monthly tasks — like unloading the dishwasher, changing the sheets, and scrubbing down the stove — that get done around the apartment, but for the other things, like organising closets, sorting through clothes, and steaming a rug (aka things that you only do once a year, if that), I like to keep a broken-down list of tasks.
Last year, the first full year in our apartment, I made a list in January of the things I wanted to organise, clean, buy, and get rid of.
2018's Apartment Task List
To make my list, I used the Get to Work Book Project Breakdown Notepad [1] (£8) because I love the way it allows you to, well, break a project down — but virtually any piece of paper or notepad would do the job.
I walked through every room of the apartment — the kitchen, bedroom, living room, and bathroom — and made separate lists of things that needed to be organised, deep-cleaned, or donated/trashed in that room, as well as things I knew I wanted to purchase.
Breaking everything down by room helped me to see that although there were a ton of things I wanted to accomplish in the apartment in general, looking at each bullet point in each room individually wasn't daunting at all. After making the list, I plucked a few small tasks from the list to do over a long holiday weekend, and crossing them off felt amazing.
Admittedly, there were a bunch of tasks that went unaccomplished, mostly because I forgot about the list for a few months when — surprise, surprise — the notepad was ironically lost in a pile of mail and other papers. After that, I put it in my bullet journal [2], where I knew I'd see it more and pay attention to it, but other places, like front and centre on the fridge, would work as well. As long as you know the list is there and are confronted with it often, the motivation to add one of the tasks to your to-do list surfaces (I promise).
2019's Apartment Projects List
For 2019's list, I carried over any of the tasks that weren't completed, eliminated any that were no longer applicable, and added a few extra things. Because it's so early in the year, I'm sure I'll add a few more tasks as I go.
This method allows me to give myself a little grace and realise that there's no humanly way to organise my entire apartment in one go (nor would I want to) or keep it clutter-free and tidy all the time, but that by performing little tasks and chipping away at the main list, I'm maintaining a fairly organised home.
Sure, I'm avoiding cleaning out the linen closet because it's been my designated spot for anything that doesn't have a place to live, but it's just one tiny bullet point on my giant list, and when I get to it, I know I'll feel that sparked joy everyone's going on about.