To preface this post, I want you to know that I am generally a "messy" person (this pains me a bit to admit), which means, I tend to leave a lot of clutter out and about and tend to leave a "trail" of things wherever I go. Ouch, yes, I said it! I blame that on my creative side who is very easily distracted and likes to go with the flow. I don't like to be "forced" into cleaning up after myself in a robotic manner. It is VERY against my nature! Also, I'm very detail-oriented. The first 8 years of my marriage, I really did not know how to clean. I would pour my energies out for HOURS "cleaning" and my husband would get home and wonder what in the world I've been doing all day. The house looked FAR from clean, and he would feel stressed out and cluttered himself when he would come home from work. And of course, I didn't understand why he didn't appreciate how sparkling clean and organized the kitchen drawers were!! I'm detailed, detailed - and my husband is big picture, big picture. After many years of angst in this area of our lives, my sweet husband, had to literally TEACH me how to clean, and it has helped me tremendously! Honestly, I realized that I needed help and wanted my home to look clean, orderly and peaceful. So, if you are anything like me, read on! This is what I did:
1) Most important thing - GET THE CLUTTER OUT! You are fighting a losing battle if you just plain have too much stuff. And, we did. So, I went through each room with bags ("giveaway*", "yard sale", "goes in a different room") and left NO spot unturned. If it was an area with just a bunch of paper junk, I put it in a big plastic bin to go through later - just get it OUT - and put it in some kind of storage area. Try to commit to do this as QUICKLY as you can so you can IMMEDIATELY enjoy the benefits of a cleaner and more "lighter" home. That is such an energy-booster!
*"Give-away" can be tricky. If you are like me and can think you can give this to little Harry, and this to little Sarah, etc., etc. and I'll just put one in this little bag, and another in this little bag - STOP. Just put it in a yard sale. You're making it TOO complicated. Invite all your friends to the yard sale and when they come, you can just give it to them for free.
2) Find some good, loud, upbeat cleaning music. This is important to help keep you on task. It is especially helpful to use a particular kind of music for just this purpose and only play that CD for cleaning! This is when I have to give up my love for folksy, melancholy music that only makes me go slow. This is especially helpful for kids too, which I'll talk about it my next cleaning blog post.
3) Had a HUGE yard sale. I love making a little bit of money and decided I was going to use the money to buy ORGANIZING things! (Which I LOVE!) Also, it is helpful to invite the person in your life to the yard sale that is on a mission to help you get RID of things so you won't overprice things because you secretly don't want it to go or you think you're junk is a little too special (thanks sis)!
4) Then, I brought organized-type people (thanks again sis!) into the rooms and had them come up with ideas of how to help the room. This is VERY important if you're someone like me. It helped me tremendously! Then, I figured out what organizing item(s) I needed to use there, and if I didn't have anything, I could buy some fun organizing item (this was very motivating for me! I know - I'm a bit weird). If you don't have money to buy organizing things, think up ways you can change something around (shelves, etc.) to try to give it a fresh change.
5) I asked my oldest WHY he never played with certain toys he did not want to get rid of. In our case, my son wasn't playing with these certain toys/games because he couldn't ever get to them (they were up in the top of the closet and he didn't know they were up there-out of sight, out of mind). So, we put games and things that were stacked up horizontally in the closet VERTICALLY on a big tall shelf so he could get to them. Months later, if he's still not playing with these toys/games when they are easily accessible, I will have more leverage to encourage him to pass it along to another child. I also LOVE those cardboard magazine holders - I like to organize "like" things in those such as, "educational games" with flash cards and things like that in one, small "readers" in another, etc. etc.
6) After you get the clutter out, it is important to clean your floors very well to make them sparkling clean! You will more likely want to keep them that way after you worked so hard. If you haven't gotten all or most things off the floor after your organizing, you are not finished. You need to get bins, shelves or something to collect anything that is sitting on the floor so you can more easily clean the floors next time. One of my favorite inexpensive organizing items is just those Sterilite drawer bins. I keep my craft supplies in them, and a ton of my sons toys, science experiment things, legos, etc.
7) Have a family meeting. Talk about how everyone can help keep it clean. Talk about the peaceful feeling you and everyone else in the family feels when everything is picked up. Get the kids involved. Now, I know, this is going to be a PROCESS. I think this has taken me about a year to finally feel like I've got something working! I will do a separate blog post on how I'm getting my kids to help!
8) Once you get the big stuff done, cleaning and decluttering on a daily basis is WAY easier and you will truly have more time to do things you enjoy! It doesn't take as long, and the kids can help if you have easier places to put things.
Now take charge of your home and wage WAR on all that stuff!! You can at worst make some improvements to make everyone's life easier, and at best, truly make a peaceful home most of the time anyways! If I can make improvements (if you ONLY knew how bad I am)...I KNOW you can too!!! Please feel free to add any tips to this - I am still learning and can always use other tips!
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