Read Simple: 30 Ways to Declutter Your Life for Free Online Page A
Authors: Beth Jones
wrong cupboards or push it to the side than to finish sorting things before supper.
The other thing that's going to happen is that your kids might need you, which will also result in you not being able to finish cleaning.
Unless you know that you're going to be able to dedicate a few hours to the care and cleaning of your kitchen, just take things slowly. Start with one shelf in one cupboard and get it completely clean and organized. Then, when you're finished, you can move on to the next thing in your kitchen.
Remember that the goal is to declutter and downsize. It's not to get everything finished as quickly as possible.
Chapter 7:
Keeping Things Organized
Getting organized is exciting, fun, and freeing.
The feeling you get when you donate bags of junk you don't want and won't miss can't be countered.
The way that you relax when you walk into a clean room that used to be overwhelming is amazing. The appearance of a tidy house is something you can be proud of.
After all, you did it.
You beat your clutter.
Once you've finished decluttering and downsizing your house, though, the maintenance part kicks in.
This is where a lot of people tend to get bogged down. After all, cleaning your house was hard work.
Shouldn't the work be over?
Unfortunately, sometimes maintaining what you've organized can be just as difficult as getting organized in the first place. It's important to take the time to maintain your newly-cleaned home, though. If you don't, you'll find that you're working twice as hard to get your home back in shape.
I recently cleaned my son's bedroom.
It took less than two hours for the entire room to become messy again.
I heard him playing in his bedroom, but I didn't want to look. I kept telling myself that it wouldn't be that bad, that we'd straighten things up before bedtime, and that he'd like having a clean room so much that he would inevitably want to help me.
Wishful thinking, I know.
All of a sudden, I heard a tiny voice.
"Mommy?"
I turned around and my son was standing in front of me with a toy.
"My room is all messy and I stepped on this Lego. Can we throw it away so it won't hurt me again? And then will you clean my bedroom for me?"
In the end, we came up with some solutions to help maintain the messy bedroom and keep things as neat as possible without being uptight about it. For example, now my son will play with one toy or set of toys. He'll then clean it up before he gets out a new set of toys. This keeps sets of toys (such as Lego bricks or puzzle pieces) together, but it also makes cleaning up the room a lot less overwhelming.
If you've also been struggling to figure out how to maintain your home's new appearance, there are a few ways that you can easily manage your clutter on an ongoing basis without spending hours each week straightening up.
Declutter Tip #26: Spend 5 minutes a day in each room.
Five minutes doesn't sound like a lot of time, but you'd be surprised how much you can get done in five minutes. Consider listening to some music and spending one song-length's amount of time in each room of your house.
Don't worry about making each room look perfect. A lived-in home will never be completely perfect.
Just spend about five minutes in each room and conquer the "big" stuff. Is there laundry on your bed? Spend five minutes folding it and putting it away.
Are there empty boxes in your living room from mail you recently received? Spend five minutes breaking them down and hauling them to your recycling bin.
No matter what your problem areas tend to be, just spend a few minutes every single day on them. This is a low-stress, simple way to get things under control and to manage your clutter on an ongoing basis.
Declutter Tip #27: Don't stress out over the little things.
My son's destruction of his bedroom could be a really stressful thing. After all, I had spend
The other thing that's going to happen is that your kids might need you, which will also result in you not being able to finish cleaning.
Unless you know that you're going to be able to dedicate a few hours to the care and cleaning of your kitchen, just take things slowly. Start with one shelf in one cupboard and get it completely clean and organized. Then, when you're finished, you can move on to the next thing in your kitchen.
Remember that the goal is to declutter and downsize. It's not to get everything finished as quickly as possible.
Chapter 7:
Keeping Things Organized
Getting organized is exciting, fun, and freeing.
The feeling you get when you donate bags of junk you don't want and won't miss can't be countered.
The way that you relax when you walk into a clean room that used to be overwhelming is amazing. The appearance of a tidy house is something you can be proud of.
After all, you did it.
You beat your clutter.
Once you've finished decluttering and downsizing your house, though, the maintenance part kicks in.
This is where a lot of people tend to get bogged down. After all, cleaning your house was hard work.
Shouldn't the work be over?
Unfortunately, sometimes maintaining what you've organized can be just as difficult as getting organized in the first place. It's important to take the time to maintain your newly-cleaned home, though. If you don't, you'll find that you're working twice as hard to get your home back in shape.
I recently cleaned my son's bedroom.
It took less than two hours for the entire room to become messy again.
I heard him playing in his bedroom, but I didn't want to look. I kept telling myself that it wouldn't be that bad, that we'd straighten things up before bedtime, and that he'd like having a clean room so much that he would inevitably want to help me.
Wishful thinking, I know.
All of a sudden, I heard a tiny voice.
"Mommy?"
I turned around and my son was standing in front of me with a toy.
"My room is all messy and I stepped on this Lego. Can we throw it away so it won't hurt me again? And then will you clean my bedroom for me?"
In the end, we came up with some solutions to help maintain the messy bedroom and keep things as neat as possible without being uptight about it. For example, now my son will play with one toy or set of toys. He'll then clean it up before he gets out a new set of toys. This keeps sets of toys (such as Lego bricks or puzzle pieces) together, but it also makes cleaning up the room a lot less overwhelming.
If you've also been struggling to figure out how to maintain your home's new appearance, there are a few ways that you can easily manage your clutter on an ongoing basis without spending hours each week straightening up.
Declutter Tip #26: Spend 5 minutes a day in each room.
Five minutes doesn't sound like a lot of time, but you'd be surprised how much you can get done in five minutes. Consider listening to some music and spending one song-length's amount of time in each room of your house.
Don't worry about making each room look perfect. A lived-in home will never be completely perfect.
Just spend about five minutes in each room and conquer the "big" stuff. Is there laundry on your bed? Spend five minutes folding it and putting it away.
Are there empty boxes in your living room from mail you recently received? Spend five minutes breaking them down and hauling them to your recycling bin.
No matter what your problem areas tend to be, just spend a few minutes every single day on them. This is a low-stress, simple way to get things under control and to manage your clutter on an ongoing basis.
Declutter Tip #27: Don't stress out over the little things.
My son's destruction of his bedroom could be a really stressful thing. After all, I had spend
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