Organizing and de-cluttering are an on-going project for most people. Just ask my mom who I think is now on her spring cleaning for 2052 because she cleans and rearranges so much. (But her house is always clean and organized!!) Well, the more people you put in less square footage the harder it is for everything to have a home and stay there. When we first moved into our house we had an empty room. For real. Then we added a bed so we had our room, an office, and a guest room. The guest room sat empty most of the time. It also held my library (which I loved). We added one kid and really didn't lose much. The guest room/library went away and instead we had a nursery. My books lost their home and eventually I sold them all (and I still miss them!). We added kid # 2 and we lost a room. We no longer had an office - it became the 2nd bedroom, then the playroom, the classroom, and the playroom again. All of that office stuff had to go somewhere!
I fought the clutter bug for years and finally feel like I'm getting it under control since my kids are getting older and they have less merchandise needed (swings, jumparoos, mounds of toys and more.) This year I'm really focusing on that word, Purposeful, and trying to make sure that everything in our home has a purpose - being more "brutal" with cleaning things out.
There are two different blogs/Facebook pages I follow. The first is Declutter 365.
You may remember me referring to the calendar that comes from this site. In this case, the author has created a calender with daily declutter missions. It takes you through your entire home through the year and, if you follow her plan, the spaces will be decluttered and organized. I've been following this the best that I can for the last few months. There are pros and cons. The pro is that it is laid out for you so you don't have to think about what to do, you just read the task and do it. The con is that it doesn't always apply to my home or my room. I found that I skipped a lot of days because it didn't fit into my "space."
This site takes the idea a different direction. The author provides you with a spreadsheet for 52 weeks. It is your job to chose 52 areas in your home to declutter. Then, work each week on that area. She also assigns some rules like you can work ahead but you can't get more then two weeks behind without catching up. This concept has really spoke to me because I could take what I learned from Declutter 365 and use it as I create my own 52 week list. I spent the last few days doing just that - creating my list starting with Nate's room and ending with the basement. I even counted weeks so I would land in the kitchen during the summer when I have more time to spend on cleaning since there isn't school. Another thing I liked about this concept is that the author talks about the fact that doing this process is yearly - it isn't a one time fix it all. The idea is to come back through it each year and make tough decisions and simplify things more. I also find that as I simplify things, I shop differently and ask for gifts differently - I think about how the items will fit into my space first.
I know I talk frequently on my the posts about goals (I was going to say goal posts but that made me think of football!) about declutting or deep cleaning so I thought I'd share my inspirations. I also love Flylady - especially for her cleaning checklists and "15 minutes on a hotspot" ideas.
