Paper Watch, Day 9

[pegkerr]

Remember this entry, last year? Rob opened his birthday present in the living room, and then never picked up the wrapping paper. I finally brought it to his attention after thirteen days.

I was curious to learn how long it would be before he picked up the paper on the living room floor after unwrapping his present this year.

So far, it has been nine days.

How long do you think it will take him to notice and pick up the wrapping paper?


[Poll #877232]

Edited to add: Of course, if/when he reads this LJ entry, it won't quite work as a blind experiment. Still, I will be curious to see the poll results.

Comments

[jbru.livejournal.com]

You might want to take the "broken windows" approach to your problem. This is a reference to the policy that Rudy Giuliani suggests helped turn crime in NYC around. Rather than concentrate on the big crimes, they concentrated on doing the little things; cutting down on graffiti, turnstyle jumpers, aggressive panhandling, etc. These made a noticable difference in the quality of life in the city and also ended up cascading through things to result in a reduction in murder and such in the city.

In your case, rather than try to get the whole house clean, you might try getting the family together, Rob included, and cleaning the living room. No recriminations about who made what mess or what needs doing. Just get everyone in the room for 10 minutes (set a timer), do something to make it better and then say, "There. Isn't that nice?"

Do it every day you have everyone in the house together. Do it when you're exhausted. Do it when you're cranky. Do it when you don't like each other very much. Do it when you're celebrating.

My prediction is that a few months down the road, the living room will no longer be a problem. The hope is that it will help instill habits in everyone so that they will take the cleaning/organizing to their own particular spaces.

Good luck! (I give you my Ganesh icon, for he is the remover of obstacles.)
Good luck!