I’m pretty embarrassed of how disorganized and messy our house looks and feels. I forget the color of the bathroom tile since its hidden from view due to dirty clothes sprawled out across the entire floor. I’m afraid of raising my standing desk for fear of a monitor toppling over due a caught wire and afraid of one of the many mugs spilling four day old tea. I cannot wipe down the kitchen counter because of the mega sized Maggi Soy Sauce (super delicious, by the way) towering over the stacked, dirty (or maybe clean) plates. By living this way, we’re sort of disrespecting our house, not taking care of it and looking after it in the way we should.

It’s time for a change.

Being messy makes it difficult to find the things we need when we need them. Just last week, I was frantically searching all over the house for my passport, searching in my bedroom, in the closet, downstairs — just about everywhere — and gave up after about an hour of pure frustration. The next day, I surreptitiously stumbled upon it while grabbing my tennis racket that was parked in my daughter’s crib. In that moment, I promised myself that I’m going to step it up.

One more reason for igniting change is that my daughter is 10 months old and I’d like to set a better example for her.  I want to raise the bar. In addition, although I think no good can come from comparing our organization and cleanliness to others, my wife did show me an Instagram post of one of our mutual friend’s house which basically sets the example of what I clean house should look like.  And I want to elevate ourselves to that level. To that end, I’m going to devise a plan and process for cleaning and most importantly, staying clean. I’m going to do more than what I normally do: read (and re-read) Kon Mari’s book on tidying. It’s time not just for a one time clean: it’s time to build a better system.

Let’s go.