Clutter is like laundry and
dishes. It never goes away. You can do some things to help minimize the
clutter in your home, but kids grow up and we go through different changes in
our lives. Things wear out and need to
be replaced and we grow out of or don’t like some of the things we used
to. The purpose of this book is to
provide an organized way to get rid of and clean out your home in a month. I am using examples from my own home as I
walk you through my experience and provide ideas of ways to do things as well
as questions to ask yourself. As it is
the beginning of a new year, I am starting in January, but you can start
whenever you want. The process is the
same whether you start at the beginning of a year, the beginning of a month or
the begging of any day in the month. The
most important thing is to start.
If your husband is watching
football, get a piece of paper and start your plan while you sit with him in
the room. If you like to watch sports,
plan when they have time outs or during the commercials. If you are watching a favorite television
show, use the commercials to plan for your month of clutter busting.
First, make a list of every room in
your home. Include the garage, laundry
room, hall closets, etc. This is an
example of our current home:
Master Bedroom
Master Bathroom
Computer Room
Guest Bedroom
Guest Bathroom
Coat closet
Living Room
Linen Closet
Family Room
Extra room
Closet under stairs
Storage closet downstairs
Pantry Closet
Kid’s Bedroom #1
Kid’s Bedroom #2
Kitchen
Kid’s Bathroom
Garage
Laundry Room
Next, figure out
how many days you can reasonable clean and declutter your home in the month. For example, January has 31 days, but I don’t
clean on Sundays, so I have 27 days to clean.
If I had a very busy day coming up, I would skip cleaning that day, and
would have 26. Once you have the number
of days you have available to work, divide the days between the number of rooms
and closets you have to clean. For
example,
Master Bedroom -3 days
Master Bathroom -1 day
Computer Room -2 days
Guest bathroom and Coat Closet – 1 day
After
you finish planning how many days you will spend on each room, you can either
get started or go into a little more detail.
For example, I am spending 3 days on the Master Bedroom. I plan on cleaning my closet one day, my
husband’s closet another day, and vacuuming, dusting, cleaning out the night
stand and changing sheets on the third day.
It
doesn’t matter where you start, just start and keep track of what you have
done. Today I started with my
closet. I removed all of my shoes from
the floor and vacuumed. I put back the
shoes I wear regularly. I saw some dust
on three pairs of shoes. Two are shoes
that I wear in the summer, so I just dusted and put them back. The third pair with dust was a pair of shoes
that I haven’t worn for a few years. It
is probably time to get rid of them since I don’t wear them. Go through your shoes and see if there are
ones you no longer wear, no longer like or no longer fit. Figure out how many pairs of shoes you need
to get by. I have a pair of running
shoes for exercise and a pair of tennis shoes for walking, etc. I don’t need more than that. Next, go through your dresses, skirts, etc.
hanging in your closet. I wear most of
the clothes I have. But, I do have a few
things I really like that don’t fit. If
I don’t wear them in the next year, they are gone. Look at the condition of your clothes. I have a few shirts with stains that need to
be replaced, so I will get rid of them when they are replaced since I need them
for now. I read about an idea to find
out what you really wear. Turn all your
hangers the opposite way. As you wear
each item of clothing, turn the hanger it is on the right way. After a few months, you will be able to see
what you do and don’t wear. Get rid of
the things you don’t wear. Most people
wear 20% of their clothes 80% of the time.
Chances are that you have a lot of things that you don’t wear or that
don’t fit any more. It is nice to open
your closet and know that things fit instead of taking a long time trying on
several things before you find something that will work for you. Less stuff equals more peace. It means fewer things to take care of and having
more time for yourself. I have a few
things in my closet that I will tackle later.
These are some gifts that I got from my children. I will ask them if they want them and then
decide what to do. I also have a few
journals that I will go though later. I
have some nice pictures I want to put up, but am not sure where to put
them. Now is not the time to decide what
to do with these things. There aren’t
too many things and they don’t take too much space. If I finish cleaning the things that need my
attention more, then I can spend the extra time going through some of these
later today. Be careful not to get
burdened by these kinds of things that take a little more thought. The first day is over and my closet is
clean. This is what it looks like
now.
You can tell I started painting my closet and didn’t
finish. I will put that on a list of
things to do and will tackle it when the weather is nicer and I can open
windows while I paint. I also wrote down
a few things I need to replace. As I
have extra money in the budget, I will look at the list of things I need to
replace and choose something I need. Don’t go out and buy any storage containers. They are used a lot of the time to hide your
clutter instead of face it. Don’t keep
anything you don’t want to take care of.
If you have clothes that need dry cleaning, think about whether you
really want to keep paying to dry clean those clothes. If you have a hard time discarding things and
donating them, consider selling them through a consignment shop. I haven’t suggested selling them on the
internet because many people keep clutter in their homes and garage just
waiting to sell them on the internet. If
you are motivated to sell them that way, set a date that you have to have them
sold by or they are out of the house for good.
If you donate them, get a receipt for your contribution to help save
money on your taxes. Having less stuff
simplifies your life. You have more time
to take care of what you have when you have less. You also can do a better job taking care of
things when there are fewer things to be responsible for.
No comments:
Post a Comment