For the next month, I am going to maintain a state of neatness. Because I live in two different places, I am always packing and unpacking bags. Oftentimes, I won’t finish putting everything up, and once one thing is left out, another follows, and soon my surroundings are cluttered.

So, this month’s challenge is fairly simple. Here are the basic objectives:

• Maintain open floor space. In general, keep things off of the floor. If they need to be on the floor, make sure they are tucked away and are not adding clutter.
• Keep tables and shelves generally organized. Not everything will be perfectly neat all the time, but things should always have a general appearance of order, even if things are laying out.
• Make the bed neatly. I have made it a point to always “make” my bed. However, it often still looks messy (creases, sheet showing, pillows scrunched up, etc.). I want to take the extra 30 seconds and make it nice.
• Do regular light cleaning. Incessantly cleaning can be a big waste of time. However, just doing 5-10 minute cleaning episodes once a day can work wonders and will remove the need to have a big cleaning day every few months.

Up next: an evaluation of my month of constant smiling!