Day Thirty One: Six (More) Things to Do Every Day

Martha instructs us to complete six basic tasks every day to "keep chaos at bay":

1) Make the bed,
2) Manage clutter,
3) Sort the mail,
4) Clean as you cook,
5) Wipe spills when they are fresh, and
6) Sweep the kitchen floor.

Today I decided to put this into practice and see if I could, indeed, "keep chaos at bay".

1) Make the bed:  Done.  With the help of my lovely sister-in-law (who is visiting from out of town), I managed to make all five beds in a few minutes.  Never mind that this task was completed approximately five minutes before bedtime. 

2) Manage clutter:  I presided over all the clutter in my house today.  I told the toys to put themselves away and ordered the laundry to fold itself.  Of course, I had to do everything myself in the end.  You can't find any good help these days. 

3) Sort the mail:  Done. I get a ridiculous amount of mail every day.  In an effort to save myself from being crushed under an avalanche of mail, I resolved long ago to sort our mail every day into three piles:  Recycling, Bills and Catalogues.  Observation: the size of the Bills pile is directly proportionate to the size of the Catalogue pile.  

4) Clean as you cook:  Done.  If I didn't clean as I cooked I would probably never cook...the sheer number of dishes at the end of a meal can be completely overwhelming. :shudder:

5) Wipe spills when they are fresh:  Done.  When I knocked over that bottle of wine while cooking dinner, I wiped it up immediately and told my husband I used it for cooking. 

6) Sweep the kitchen floor:  Done.  Kitchen floor is food-, dirt- and toy-free.  Observation:  My children are messy eaters. While I may not be keeping chaos at bay by sweeping the floor, I'm definitely keeping the ants at bay.

Conclusion:   I'm not sure how any of these things "keeps chaos at bay". To me, chaos entails something more than dried food on the floor and a stack of mail next to your unmade bed. My house, however, is tidy and clean, and bedlam seems to have been averted for today.