Assignment #1: Create a Project List

The starter's gun has been fired! I'm off and running on my first-ever January Cure. I received my first e-mail this morning on my first assignment: creating a project list. After brewing a pot of coffee, I dutifully went through every room in the apartment, beginning at the door at bottom of the steps. (I live on the third floor of a building.) My place isn't overly large, so the exercise didn't take too long - or at least it shouldn't have taken too long since I already broke a rule, which was not to begin any of the projects that I jotted on my list. (More on that in a minute.) Basically this is the project list I came up with:

Entrance way:
- Do a thorough clean of the steps leading up to apartment
- Decrease cat litter smell (better still, figure out why the cat seems to enjoy peeing outside the box every few days...)
- Wipe off excessive grime and dust from walls

Landing:
- Better organize coat rack (ie., figure out why the hell it seems overloaded with so many coats)
- Clear excessive clutter around shoe rack (do I really have that many pairs of shoes?)
- Buy a small bench to store stuff and to use for putting on shoes? (There's a small space where a bench could fit, although I fear it's too small, hence the question mark.)

Kitchen:
- Figure out a solution to not having clutter accumulate on kitchen table (a basket, maybe?)
- Have a better solution to storing my recycleables
- Reorganize the two shelves (one that holds spices and other assorted stuff, the other above my kitchen table that holds my radio/docking station and candles)
- Do an extensive rethink of the cupboards both below and above the counter.

Bedroom:
- More artwork/photos on the walls (since I don't have any up there now, even a few pieces will make a difference)
- Go through dresser and discard unused clothes
- Work on not cluttering up the top of my dresser with excessive clothes
- Move the bed to make an additional space on the other side for two bedside tables (I did this already!); buy another lamp

Hallway:
- Hang additional artwork
- Buy an area rug? (I actually have a rug for that space, but the cat tends to lounge on it so it gets dirty awfully fast, so I stopped using it.)

Office:
- Make it more of an "intellectual sanctuary" for my writing, reading and thinking (I did a lot of this yesterday when I rearranged the room and added a reading chair by the window)
- Clear excess clutter on the desk
- Clean out filing cabinet and drawer
- Add additional art pieces on walls (I want to frame posters from my exhibition and accompanying small press fair)

Living Room:
- Rearrange CDs and DVDs to give them a sense of order
- More artwork
- Reorganize book shelf, largely by purging book collection
- Clear the closet of unnecessary crap

That's really about it! Not overly daunting, I don't think. And as I said, I've already broken a rule by initiating one of the projects, which was doing a minor overhaul of the bedroom. I had been meaning to go through the bedside tables for a while to clean out the accumulated contents. It's amazing the things I found! A People Style from 2009 (this belonged to A. when we travelled to Argentina; not sure how or why it ended up in a drawer at my place), an iron, some t-shirts, two bottles of lube and about a dozen safes (I had to throw out most of them since they were past their sell-by dates). I also found two pairs of functioning headphones, and I finally threw out my very first iPod (which dates back to around 2005 and hasn't worked for years). Basically I'm happy to report that 2014 is off to a productive start!

Wish me luck as I continue my January Cure assignments.