Let’s Get Our Shit Together, Yeah?

Laneia’s Team Pick:

One of the most magical magicks of the internet is that we can do so many things together, even when we aren’t in the same place, and even when we don’t know each other. Even while we’re still in our yoga pants from this morning! Being productive and supportive without having to put on clean clothes is The Best, which is why I feel really excited to hop on board the organization train that is Apartment Therapy’s January Cure. Together with probably millions and billions of other people who need to get real with themselves regarding the state of their entryway, I’m going to just organize and clean the ever-loving shit out of my unit, and I can’t wait.

I thought you might want to do it with us, and it started TODAY, so you’re not even late yet! My mom says I’ll be late for my own funeral, so the fact that I caught this today and not tomorrow or March is like, incredible.

cleaning house

When you sign up at Apartment Therapy, you’ll receive daily emails compelling you to do something largely basic and common sense, yet so entirely life-changing. And! You’ll be super amped knowing that you’re not the only one reconfiguring your living room lighting that day.

If you’re the kind who skips ahead to the end of the book, the entire cure calendar is also available. Please excuse me while I make my List of Projects. Day 1 bitches HUZZAH!

Let’s talk about it! Are you in? Have you ever done an Apartment Therapy cure? Is your place already so organized that you don’t even need this ish? What would life be like if you lived with Martha Stewart, only she was gay and maybe a few years younger? Have you ever made tomato jam? That’s unrelated to this post.

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lnj

lnj has written 310 articles for us.

63 Comments

  2. I’m so excited for this it’s almost obscene.

    Cleaning! Organizing things! Making everything look nice! Best January ever.

  3. when coming back to my place after the holidays I’m always a little confused by the fact that dishes don’t actually do themselves, clothes don’t magically disappear from the floor and if I don’t put it there there’s not gonna be a towel next to the shower. so I guess this is neat/needed

    • i ALWAYS forget to put my towel back in the bathroom too! and i always realize it AFTER my shower and i get awkwardly confused because i have roommates and i can’t just walk out naked, so i end up having to wring out my hair and put my dirty clothes back on until i cross the hall to my bedroom. or i just look to see if anyone is in the hallway and i run.
      totally random, i know. but yes, more organization is needed.

        • one should probs rethink their priorities when taking a mobile with when showering but no towel eh

          • HAHAH!! that’s actually how my most embarrassing moment EVER happened.

            i locked my front door and kept the keys attached to it, so even if someone had the key, they couldn’t get in. when i went to take a shower, the handle broke off the other side of the bathroom door (there really was no way out, i tried for over an hour) and i ended up trapped in the bathroom. with no towel or clothes.

            the rescue squad came with their trucks and sirens and climbed into my 3rd story bathroom window. i ripped the shower curtain down and wrapped it around me. let me also tell you that this happened in jordan while i was living there for a year and i did NOT speak arabic.

            but i still always forget to take a towel and always bring my mobile.

          • i forgot the best part. since i had called a friend to try to unlock my door (forgetting that the keys were in it and she couldn’t), she was there talking to the rescue people when they got there. my curious neighbors came outside and asked her questions, and they decided to stand there with her in my apartment as i got out of the bathroom wrapped in a shower curtain. i had never met them before.

  6. I’m so in! On Sunday I’m moving in to my new apartment, which I’d like to be less chaotic than my old place… and I’m even still in my yoga pants from this morning ;)

  7. I moved into a new apartment in November, and I’ve been super good at keeping it organized and tidy. the Unfuck Your Habitat tumblr has been really helpful too! It’s got me making my bed every morning, which I NEVER did before.

    • I used to be a pretty messy and unorganized person. Now my apartment stays nice and neat all the time. The only ONLY thing that managed to motivate me to start keeping it clean all the time? When I started hooking up with girls….

      • Oh jeez it’s embarrassing how true this is for me. My apartment is a pigsty Monday through Wednesday which magically transforms into a positively charming little nest for the weekend.

    • Getting ready to move to a new apartment and want to get into good habits beforehand to smooth the transition. Not only have I started to unfuck the fuck out of my habitat, I bought the iPhone app! Emma I love the unfucking fuck out’a you!

  8. update: this list is about 4x longer than i expected it to be AND i can’t find my highlighter. but i will persevere.

    eta: FOUND THE HIGHLIGHTER

  10. I’ve always kept my house disaster messy to ward off robbers. ‘Oh! Someone already hit this place!’ Says the bandit and he slinks off into the night while I snicker from behind the couch. However, this year I want to keep my place movie date ready. ‘Hay nice place.’ The sexy bandit says as I offer popcorn and slip Legend into the DVD player.

    I’m in!

    • Hear I was, joining the cure, merely hoping to navigate through my apartment without having to avoid random junk piles

      but damn if your reasoning isn’t much more enticing. Duly noted!

  11. I just moved into a new apartment this weekend. I definitely need to check this out! As well as that fucking habitat Tumblr, or whatever it’s called :)

  12. i want to be in but i think this is kind of hard with roommates?

    i love my roomies and i’m by far not the “neat one” (that would be carly!) but i feel like it would be tough to implement this because living with three other people is just…yeah, i think it would be hard to make this happen. but maybe i’m just making excuses! i dunno!

    i didn’t drink diet coke today (goal #1) and i’m gonna journal (goal #2) before i go to bed tonight, which WILL BE before midnight (goal #3) so i’m gonna go easy on myself and say it’s okay if i don’t organize my home this year. maybe next year will be my year. heck, i’ll just be impressed if i hang shit on my wall by the time my lease is up…

  13. I did an Apt Therapy color cure a while back, which resulted in one small wall of my kitchen turning a dusty purple and one small wall turning lime green – it is AWESOME. And if you’re wondering how my kitchen can have two small walls and still be navigable… it’s a weird kitchen. Anyway, looking forward to the ‘regular’ cure :D

  14. i’ve never made tomato jam but i think my mum has? she makes a lot of different jams, of which feijoa jam is both the most prevalent and the most delicious. i like how that question was just tossed in there at the end of the post.

  18. I was half asleep when I started reading this so I didn’t really clock what the phrase ‘Apartment Therapy’s January Cure’ actually meant and I just read ‘the state of their entryway’ and ‘my unit’ as vagina euphemisms.

    Seriously though – I need to do this, my room is starting to look like the start of a hoarders episode.

  19. For real though, being single (and the possibility of bringing girls into my space) is the best motivation to keep my space clean and dishes washed.
    Because for me, week old dishes in the sink and piles of dirty clothes/newspapers in an apartment: that’s a huge turn-off.

  20. I recently cleaned the hell out of my bedroom. Four bags full of clothing for charity/clothing swap later, and I’m ready to start on other rooms of my apartment. This is just what I needed!

  21. I am so in on this. My room is the one part of my life that is still a complete shambles… or actually anywhere I can shove things and shut the doors so no one can see.

  23. I’m the least organized person in the universe, and anyone who’s ever been in my apartment can attest to that. One of my roommates is super neat, and the other is moderately neat (but enjoys doing the dishes…), so maybe we can turn it into roommate bonding time!

  24. This quest has been accepted! Looking forward to the 10,000 life points at the end if I achieve this quest! And hopefully a hot girl to show off my lush digs to. . .

  25. when I was a little kid the only day of the year I cleaned my room was new years day. 24 blessed hours of throwing away things and organizing and dusting. Obv now I can be drunk on New Years Eve and I have an entire apartment so this sounds like the perfect way to spend my first weekend of 2013.

  27. I just signed up. I’m so excited. I planned on doing this anyways this month and this is the perfect tool! :-)thanks so much for posting this.

  28. I wish this would compel me to be a tidier person. But my extreme aversion to being told what to do extends to automated emails.

  29. real talk: this is moving a little slow for my taste. i’ve decided to jump ahead to the part where i “find a storage solution for extra paper towels and toilet paper,” so.

    • YES! i just did this two days ago! my extra toilet paper now lives one of those foldable fabric bins on a shelf in my bathroom closet. it’s perfect. i also put a basket on the back of the toilet to hold my box of tissues and the bathroom air freshener. i feel so much better about my bathroom now.

  30. I really need to be messier. Maybe I’ll sign up and do the opposite of what is suggested. (I’m serious, I’m so uptight right now about disorder of any kind that I’m making myself miserable). A little mess is good!

  31. Less than a month now till the worst messmaker in the house moves out… then it’ll be just two of us splitting the house. Neither of us are the typical neat freak sort, but we both feel we’re not 19 anymore, and we both want to live in a nicer environment. This will help!

  32. Is there a prize at the end of it? Because if not, I gotta’ be honest with you, I’m just not gonna be able to do it.

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