Clutter Clearing Made Easy

One of the most uncomfortable pieces of advice I ever received for accomplishing my goals was to share them.

Yes, sharing my home organization goals is uncomfortable for me.

However, when I do share my goals and my progress, I get more done.

So this year, I am sharing with you my home transformation goals.

I will keep you posted on my progress – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

And, I hope that you will be inspired to set your own home organization goals, and share your journey also.

Organizing My Home

As I’ve raised two children while maintaining my career, some things had to give.  Usually it was the house.

We’ve gone through phases of more or less clutter, based on my kids’ ages and my energy levels – or should I say stress levels.

Over time, I have tackled areas in my home that have been prone to clutter.

I’ve accepted that some level of clutter will never go away completely, and every so often I need to go back and clean up and reorganize these areas of my home.

Some areas need to be taken care of more often than others.  But overall, once I have organized an area in my home, it is a fairly easy process to clean it up again when it gets in disarray.

This year, I strongly feel the need to transform a couple of key spaces in my house — to reclaim these spaces in my home, and give them a new purpose.

Yes, my life is as hectic as ever, but transforming my house into the home I want to live in is increasingly important to me.

My Top 3 Home Transformation Goals For 2012

1.  Transform my living room into a reading room.

We have a beautiful high ceilinged living room at the front of our house that is rarely used.  It is the home for our musical instruments, overwintering plants, and unfinished projects.

In many homes, this room is the formal living room, a showpiece room.  I never had such dreams for my living room, but at the same time felt constrained by its traditional use.  So it mostly sat idle.

One day in December, as I was standing in the middle of the living room, wondering what to do with this underutilized space,  I had an aha moment.

I’ve always wanted a beautiful comfortable space to hide away in – to read, relax, think — a reading room.   And the living room would be the perfect space for my new reading room.

So the idea of the transformation was born.  And I am really excited to turn this space into a room that us usable for me and my family.

2.  Get the paperwork out of my bedroom.

When I first started buying rental properties, I did not have a designated space for the paperwork.  The library in our house was a disaster area  — cluttered and unusable.

A corner of my bedroom became my business space.   And even though I now have a fully functioning home office, the files for the rental properties remain in my bedroom.

Although the files are organized, they are mainly sitting in boxes on the floor of my bedroom.  Organized clutter?  Hmmm.

The time is overdue to move the active files from my bedroom into my office, and boxes of files required for record keeping into the basement.

I want to rearrange some of the furniture in my bedroom, and clearing out this space will give me more options to play with.

3.  Hold a garage sale jointly with my neighbor.

OK, this one’s not really a transformation, as much as it is part of an ongoing effort to get rid of stuff that is just cluttering up the house.

Last year, I held a garage sale (my first one), and sold a lot of kids stuff — toys, bikes, slides, kiddie pool.  We also donated a mini-van full of toys to my kids’ old daycare.

And still, the house and basement are full of stuff.  Stuff that I don’t use, the kids don’t use, and someone else would be thrilled to find at a low cost.

Although preparing for the garage sale was time consuming, this year we’re having another one.

By planning the garage sale jointly with my neighbor, it keeps us both on track to prep for the garage sale.  And sale day is more fun!

And, if we time it correctly, we can also save the lives of excess volunteer plants in our gardens that would otherwise get weeded out and tossed.

Now it’s your turn.

If you haven’t done so already, set your home organization goals for this year.  Doesn’t matter if they’re big or small.

What matters is that they will get you one step closer to having your home the way you want it.

Then share your goals.

If you don’t feel comfortable sharing your home organization goals with your family or friends, post them in the comments section of this blog post.

Just the act of sharing your goals will help solidify them for you.

And I’d love to hear about your home organization  and successes throughout the year.

To your organizing success,
Barb

Copyright © 2012 www.ClutterClearingMadeEasy.com.  All rights reserved.

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Want to use this article in your Ezine or Website?  You can, as long as you include the complete article and the Copyright information.

Lucky Bamboo

As our world continues to get busier and clutter continues to plague so many homes, feng shui  concepts are growing in popularity as a way to help simplify our lives, and claim back positive energy.

Feng shui is an ancient Chinese practice focused on enhancing beneficial energy flow, called Chi.  Good energy flow is favourable, and said to bring good fortune and health.

In feng shui, clutter is said to block the flow of energy, making you feel tired, sluggish, generally low in energy.

In the western world, clutter is also associated with a drain in energy, and in feeling overwhelmed by all the stuff.

As you work on decluttering your home and aspects of your life, here are a few tips borrowed from feng shui in three key areas to help enhance the flow of positive energy in your life.

As you sort through clutter, throw out any items that bring up negative emotions or memories.

These items are said to hold negative energy.

When you have items around that remind you of something negative from the past , you are evoking negative emotions.  In feng shui terms, these items are blocking positive energy flow.

If the negative stuff is something you need to keep (e.g. tax paperwork from a difficult time), pack it away and place it in an area of your home where you don’t generally go to.  If you can, store it offsite.

If there is no need for you to keep this negative clutter… don’t!  Throw it out.

Clean out your purse and wallet regularly.

In feng shui, keeping your purse and wallet clean is said to attract wealth.

It is easy for clutter to accumulate quickly in purses and wallets.  So, regularly clean out your purse and wallet, remove old receipts, and other stuff dumped into your purse.

Clean out money from the bottom of your purse also.  And keep your wallet and purse organized so you can quickly and easily find what you need.

Keep your kitchen clean and free of clutter.

The state of your kitchen is associated with health in feng shui.  Clean your kitchen, and clear the kitchen of clutter for good flowing energy, and better health.

Really, if you think about it, a clean uncluttered kitchen is much more pleasant to cook meals in.

And, kitchens are major places in the home for harmful bacteria to grow.  By keeping your kitchen clean, you minimize the risk of you and your family getting sick.

To Learn More About Feng Shui

Feng shui does not have to be confusing.

Learn how to apply Feng Shui to 26 areas of your life and home, Click Here
to learn more about a no nonsense resource that teaches you how.

26 Feng Shui Secrets

To your organizing success,
Barb

Copyright © 2011 www.ClutterClearingMadeEasy.com.  All rights reserved.

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Want to use this article in your Ezine or Website?  You can, as long as you include the complete article and the Copyright information.

I have always been an advocate of the force-yourself-to-declutter-by-inviting-guests-over method to get some of my neglected clutter cleaned up.

Sometimes it’s great.  Sometimes, not so easy.

I’d like to share a personal story with you from this past Thanksgiving (October 10 this year, here in Canada).  I hope you enjoy it, and get inspired to tackle a neglected project .

I did not even have to look for an event–it was our turn to host the family Thanksgiving meal.  And, Thanksgiving is a doosey.  There is a lot of prep work.

My family was coming over on the Sunday, for a 1:00 meal of turkey with all the fixings.  Being that we usually have our Thanksgiving meal early afternoon, there is a lot of prep work that needs to be done Saturday to ensure the turkey is in the oven on time Sunday morning, and everything else is ready too.

Because Sunday morning is so tight, I try to prep as much as possible on the Saturday.  So, Saturday I picked up the turkey, bought the groceries required, cut up the bread for the stuffing, washed and prepped the veggies.  And, cleaned the house.

Everyone gets in on the act to clean the house.  The floor gets washed, the carpets vacuumed, toilets cleaned, and the house tidied up overall — all the regular stuff.

What was bugging me for a while though, was a couple of nooks in the dining room cabinets that were filled with unknown stuff, with knickknacks placed strategically in front of it, to hide the stuff behind.

Usually this mess is really easy to ignore. These nooks have been cluttered for a long time.

But recently, this old clutter was bugging me more than usual. Usually, I just make sure the clutter is mostly hidden and hope the lights are dim enough for the shadows to disguise the mess behind the veneer of cleverly placed knick-knacks.

Even though my goal is to clean up some outstanding mess when I’m cleaning for company, with a high-prep time like Thanksgiving, I tend to skip it.

No matter.  This was a habit goal I had set for myself, and this year I wasn’t going to break it, not even for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I’ll find a way to get all the cooking and general cleaning done – somehow I always do.

So Saturday afternoon, I sat down in front of this mess, and started pulling things out.  I figured I’d tackle one shelf and see how it went.  At worse case, I’ll put away a couple of items I found in the back.

I completely emptied the shelf — usually the best way to tackle a job like this.  Was I ever shocked at the junk that I found behind my cleverly placed knick-knacks.

I found old short candle stubs that should have been thrown out years ago, incense and candles I didn’t know I had that I could have been using, empty candy wrappers, confetti, and a host of other small items.

I looked at all this stuff in front of me — hmmm.  My son came over and giggled.  He fully remembered hiding those chocolate bar wrappers in days gone by.  Well, he got the honor of throwing them all in the garbage.

About three quarters of the items on that shelf were garbage. Even a large decorative piece that had dried hot peppers on it was beginning to disintegrate, and got tossed.  Everything else got put away in its place.

It didn’t take me nearly as long to clean out this shelf as I had always thought it would.  It helped that I had oodles of other things to attend to, so I was on a mission to get it done quickly.  I had a deadline, so I could not dilly dally down memory lane as I cleaned out the shelf.

I was so thrilled with this shelf, that I went on to clean the other side.  I pulled out everything from the second adjoining shelf, and proceeded to clean that one up also.

And yes, this is a picture of the nook after it was cleaned up.

It took a little longer to deal with the second nook, but not much.  There were no hidden candy wrappers, but there were hair ties, notepads, and more knick-knacks to decide whether to keep or trash.

When the second shelf was cleaned out and arranged, I stood back and was in awe at the transformation. I beat myself up a bit — why hadn’t I done this sooner.  It was so easy to do.  However, I was thrilled this mini project was done.

I had so much energy as I went on to do the regular cleaning, and prep work for Sunday.

And every time I passed by the dining room over the next couple of days, and saw my organized nooks, I smiled.  I couldn’t help it – they looked so nice and uncluttered.

As I write this post, I know that for a lot of my American friends reading this, Thanksgiving is approaching.

So, as you’re getting ready to entertain for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or any other event, ask yourself:

Is there a space that’s been silently nagging at you that could use a clean-up?

It could be a bunch of hidden junk like mine was, or a space that’s gotten a bit disheveled over time.

Clean it up before you begin your regular preparations for your event.  And enjoy your cleaner, more organized home as you celebrate.  You deserve it!

To your organizing success,
Barb

Copyright © 2011 www.ClutterClearingMadeEasy.com.  All rights reserved.

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Want to use this article in your Ezine or Website?  You can, as long as you include the complete article and the Copyright information.

I remember years ago, when computers were coming into the mainstream, there was a lot of talk about a paperless society.

Ah finally, a solution to paper clutter.  Ha!

In my observation, the more paperless we apparently got, the more we were buried under paper!

In the office and at home, paper clutter continues to be a problem for a lot of people — including me.

It’s so easy to get buried under all that paper.  So much so, that at times it feels futile.

Why Paper Clutter Won’t Go Away

Paper clutter accumulates more quickly and is more difficult to deal with than other types of clutter.

As an example,

Once you clean out your closet, purging it of all pieces of clothing that don’t fit, and organizing it in a way that suits your lifestyle, you are done.

To keep your closet organized, you put back your clothing where you got it from.  It is relatively quick each week to spend a few minutes in your closet and tidy up any stray pieces of clothing.

And, it is your choice whether to purchase new clothes or not, and when to purchase them.

Same deal with organizing your kitchen, basement, garage, or any other space in your home.

Not so with paper!

Once you organize and file away your papers, you are done for the day — if you’re lucky.

Because, soon there will be more paper coming into the household or the office that will need to be dealt with.

What makes paper clutter so difficult to deal with is that the paper keeps coming.

No matter what you do, there is always more paper!  The mail arrives every day, the kids bring home paperwork from school, documents are printed for review, newspapers and magazines arrive regularly.

You need to continually work at it to stay on top of the paper clutter.

I’ve used the following 3 steps to stay on top of my paperwork, and avoid being buried in a pile of paper clutter (most of the time 🙂 ).  It’s simple and effective.

3 Step Solution to Paper Clutter

1.  Accept that there will be a continuous influx of paper.

No matter how much you throw out, or how many mailing lists you unsubscribe from, there will continue to be a stream of paper to deal with in one form or another.

Paper is a part of our lives, and I find it’s not worth wasting my energy stressing over it.  Better to use that energy to do some filing, or review a bill.

2.  Make it part of your regular routine to handle the paperwork, and then file or purge it.

The simplest way to prevent paperwork from becoming paper clutter and to clear up existing paper clutter, is to build in a regularly scheduled time within your week for dealing with your paperwork.

Treat your paperwork time as you would any other appointment.

You’ll be amazed at how much less you’ll be stressing over your paperwork, if you tackle it on a regular basis.

3.  Implement a system, and stick to it.

Your system does not need to be anything complex.  I always believe that the simpler the system, the more likely it is to be followed.

If you already have a system in place, awesome!

If not, take some time to set up a system that fits your paperwork needs.

If you are looking for a system that is easy to implement and very effective, I highly recommend you read Section 9 – Managing The Paper In Your Home in the book 

The Definitive Guide to Home Organization for Busy People

It takes you through an easy-to-use system for organizing your paperwork.

And once you’re done, this book has many great ideas for tackling other organizing projects around your home.

Click Here! to find out more.

To get you started on setting up a paper organization system, try the following suggestions:

• Designate a specific place for paying your bills, handling and sorting paperwork

• Use color coded file folders or binders to help speed up paper filing and retrieving

• Clearly label your folders, envelopes, binders or whatever other storage you are using for your papers

Make sure the filing system you set up makes sense to you.  You are the one who will be using it.

And remember, dealing with paper is an ongoing part of our lives. By regularly tackling incoming paper and paper clutter, you will keep your paper clutter and your paper related stress to a minimum.

And less stress is always a good thing.

To your organizing success,
Barb

Copyright © 2011 www.ClutterClearingMadeEasy.com.  All rights reserved.

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Want to use this article in your Ezine or Website?  You can, as long as you include the complete article and the Copyright information.

If you have a mess that keeps haunting you, use the Quick-Start list to help you de-clutter and organize this mess once and for all.

1. Choose your organizing project or task.

If you are like most people, you have many areas of your home that you want to work on organizing.  It’s overwhelming to try to tackle them all at once.  And easy to put it off as a result.

To get past the overwhelm, choose just one organizing activity , and work through that one.

If your haunting mess is large, break it up into manageable chunks. Then, choose just one chunk to tackle.

2. Allocate a time slot in your day, or in your week.

By having a designated time to work on your organization activity, you will free yourself from all other tasks you need to do, and focus on just that activity.

3.  Work on your organizing activities during your allotted time.

This is often harder than it sounds.  It’s so easy to justify other activities that need to be done in place of the decluttering tasks you’ve planned.  But, don’t do it.  Stick to what you’ve planned and spend the time on your organization tasks.

You will be thrilled that you stuck with it, especially when you see the progress you made organizing your space.

4. Keep yourself accountable.

If you are having difficulty working on your organizing activities during your chosen time slot, implement a strategy or two to keep yourself accountable.

Strategies to keep you accountable:

• Plan a reward for yourself (and your helpers) for when your allotted time is completed

• Use a timer to free your mind of other tasks and help you focus on what you planned to do.

• Get someone in your household to keep you accountable – children are great at this as they love to tell their parents what to do for a change.  They will keep you on track!

5.Rejig Your Schedule.

If after a couple of weeks your time slot is not working for you, relook at your schedule and choose a time that you think is more workable.  Sometimes it takes a bit of playing with your schedule to find a time that you can stick to.

If it’s really working for you, keep that time slot reserved for other organizing projects.  Once you complete one project, choose your next.

Before you know it, you’ll have a clean and orderly space – be proud of what you accomplished and remember to celebrate.

To your organizing success,
Barb

Copyright © 2011 www.ClutterClearingMadeEasy.com.  All rights reserved.

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Want to use this article in your Ezine or Website?  You can, as long as you include the complete article and the Copyright information.

The way you view your clutter clearing activities has a great deal of impact on how you approach it.

We all know that there are many valid practical reasons why we need to organize our homes.

But, it is easy to get caught up in day to day living, and de-cluttering falls by the wayside.

Clearing clutter slips into the back of our mind as other more pressing priorities take up our time and energy.  Before you know it, there is more clutter around.

And, even though it is annoying and stressful each time you see the clutter, you do nothing about it.

Sometimes you need a stronger purpose to motivate you to get the job done.

You can choose to take any mundane de-cluttering task and turn it into a purposeful one.

By giving organization tasks importance and meaning, you raise your desire to get the clutter clearing done.  Otherwise, the task is just a chore that can be put off for another day.

Give yourself a reason great enough to encourage you to organize your clutter.

Your reason for clearing clutter could be a reason tied directly to what things will be like after the mess is cleaned up.

For example,

Home Office:  If you work from home, you organize your home office with the intent that you will make more money because you have an organized office.

You will have a dedicated place to work, and you will know where to find what you need, saving you valuable time.

Rather than dreading the paper clutter you walk into each day, you will look forward to working productively in your organized and functional home office.

Or you could declare a reward for yourself, that you receive after the de-cluttering work is done.

As illustrated with the following example,

Kitchen Pantry:  You have an overflowing cluttered pantry.  You are notorious for buying duplicate kitchen staples because you don’t know what’s in your cupboards.

There is a new restaurant in your neighborhood that you want to try.

Organize your pantry and ‘shop at home’ first.  For every item on your shopping list that you find in your pantry, set the money that you would have spent on the item into a ‘new restaurant fund’.

Once you have enough money in your ‘new restaurant fund’, treat yourself to dinner at the new restaurant.   You deserve it!

It’s a great way to save money on groceries, use up old hidden items in the pantry, and reward yourself with a dinner out.

So, if you have an area of clutter to clear and you’ve been putting it off, think about how it will benefit you when the work is done.

Have your purpose clearly in your mind, clear your clutter, then go and  enjoy your reward.

To your organizing success,
Barb

Copyright © 2011 www.ClutterClearingMadeEasy.com.  All rights reserved.

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Want to use this article in your Ezine or Website?  You can, as long as you include the complete article and the Copyright information.

All new energy flows into your home from the front door, aka Feng Shui.  Well in our case, our front entrance was blocking all that good energy – with shoes!

A chronic problem for many years in our household was the shoe clutter at the front entrance.  We had a vast collection of jumbled shoes.  Very frustrating when trying to get out of the house quickly.

And, as the kids grew to teenagers, the shoe clutter problem only got worse.  Chaos in the front entrance ruled.

I consistently tried the good ole ‘Put your shoes back when you get home — neatly’.  But to no avail.

Who was I kidding.  Even I was guilty of slipping off my shoes at the entrance when I came home from work, and rushing off to prepare dinner before heading off to a dance class with my daughter.

I needed a solution because the pile of shoes in the front entrance was driving me nuts!

And here’s my journey to my family’s ultimate solution to clearing the shoe clutter:

1.  Put away shoes in your own bedroom in closet racks, or in those fabric shoe organizers you hang on your closet door.

Did not even go there!  Looks good in magazines and on TV, but this solution had no chance of surviving in our household.

Maybe OK for dressy shoes hardly worn that can be cleaned before being brought upstairs into the bedroom.

But so impractical for the mess of wet, muddy, soiled everyday shoes that were thrown off upon entering the house.

And the likelihood of shoes being taken upstairs by anyone in this household — nada.

2. Install a shoe rack in the front hallway closet.

I tried installing a shoe rack in the front hallway closet.  It had worked like a charm for my neighbor.

But in our household, coats and jackets already had the notorious habit of falling off the hangers onto the floor.  And, often the kids would just throw the shoes in the closet to appease me.

Finding shoes became an even more frustrating exercise, with coats being flung out of the closet, and digging for shoes in the dark closet.

We created an even bigger, more frustrating pile of clutter, albeit somewhat hidden from visitors.

Alas, I had a solution.  Or so I thought.

3.  Place a bench in the front entrance, and tuck the shoes neatly underneath.

Garden bench that used to be in the front entrance, accumulating clutter underneath. Looks much prettier in the garden.

We had a nice big bench that fit nicely in our wide front entrance.  The shoes would be neatly tucked away under the bench so no one would trip on them, and we could also sit on the bench to put our shoes on.

Ha!  No such luck!

At first it kinda worked.  A pile of shoes still formed at the front entrance, but when it was time to clean up, the shoes could be quickly placed under the bench, in a semi-ordered way.

No one used the bench to sit down on to put their shoes on .  Everyone stood or sat on the stair steps, like they have always done.

Behind the bench became a dirty disorganized messy area.  To me, it was worse than having a big pile of visible shoes to sift through — now there was a bigger invisible pile of shoes at the back of the bench!

Well one day, I got really fed up, and said ‘this bench has to go!’.  And outside it went.

I cleaned out the entire area.  Amazing how many lost school forms I found, and tests brought home that I never saw.  Along with shoes that haven’t fit the kids for months, an umbrella, and assorted little pieces of toys.

4. Combination of front entrance and the closet to store shoes.

Combinations of these systems work really well for some families.

We tried keeping only often-used shoes in the front, and rarely-worn shoes in the front hallway closet.  But everyone ‘needed’ their shoes at the front entrance, and very few stayed in the closet.

I knew I needed a solution, but hadn’t hit upon anything yet that worked for my family.

So, open and exposed, the cluttered shoes lay for months.

As I stared at the mess of shoes, I laid out the criteria for what I wanted.

Somehow, the shoes needed to be contained.  There were just too many pairs of shoes in the front entrance.  Everyone liked to see their shoes, and have them easily accessible.

As the kids were getting older, with soccer shoes, golf shoes, varied dance shoes, and fashionable runners, flats and heels, the shoe collection in the front entrance was steadily growing.

I wanted a simple solution, easy to keep clean and organized.  And, I realized I needed to use vertical space to its advantage.

Two-level shoe racks just wouldn’t cut it — there were too many shoes.  Those racks where you hook the shoes on them wouldn’t work for my family either.

A bookcase.  I knew a bookcase wasn’t the answer, but the concept made sense to me.  I wanted a breathable, easy to clean bookcase kind of unit to clear the front entrance shoe clutter.

I looked around, and also explained to my family the type of solution I was looking for.

In the meantime, the shoe clutter at the front entrance remained.

5. The storage rack used as a shoe rack.

Storage/Shoe Rack in the front entrance. Works like a charm to contain our family's shoes.

Then one day my husband and kids were shopping at Walmart, and I got a call.  They had been browsing for who-knows-what and came across 6-level high Rubbermaid storage racks.  Price wise, they were very economical.

He wasn’t sure if they’d be attractive or sturdy enough, but when he explained the height and width of them, I said ‘buy two’.  I don’t care how they look – anything’s better than that pile of shoes on the floor.

So, they came home with these two racks.

The racks were coated wire racks – easy to clean, and air circulates freely.  The width and the height of the spacing between the racks worked really well for shoes.

Literally, when the racks were put in place, it took five minutes to place all the shoes on the rack.  Shoe clutter gone!

And my dream of having the shoes neatly organized, and off the floor was finally a reality.

We have had these storage racks in the front entrance for the past couple of years now.  And this system works beautifully for our family.

Everyone still leaves some of their shoes on the floor.  But, decluttering the front entrance of shoes only takes a minute or two for the kids to put all the shoes back in their place on the rack.

It’s easy to clean the rack.  The racks are really light (unlike the heavy outdoor bench I tried previously) and easy to pull out for an occasional good cleaning behind the rack.

The rack takes up very little space, making our front entrance nice and roomy.

A solution to the shoe chaos, and energy freely flowing in through the front door.  Must admit, it feels good coming into the house and not tripping on a pile of shoes.

If you have shoe clutter in your front entrance, I hope this post has given you ideas and inspiration to clear up this problem area in your home.

To your organizing success,
Barb

Copyright © 2011 www.ClutterClearingMadeEasy.com.  All rights reserved.

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Want to use this article in your Ezine or Website?  You can, as long as you include the complete article and the Copyright information.

Getting organized doesn’t need to be difficult.

These tips I share with you today will help you stay on track when life is hectic – and when isn’t life hectic these days!

1.  Set the timer.

When you are ready to organize some papers, or tackle a de-cluttering job, set the timer for the time you plan to work on your organization task. This is time that you have freed up for yourself to tackle something that’s important to you.

Ask family members to respect this time. When the timer goes off, they’re free to ask you a question, or whatever it is that they would otherwise have interrupted you for.

2.  Plan each day.

Either at the beginning of your day, or the night before, sit down and plan your day.  Especially if your life is very hectic, determine what time in your day you will devote to organizing your clutter.

By determining when you will devote time to getting organized, you will not stress about the task at other times, and you will be more likely to work on your organization task as you planned.

Although planning your day takes some time, you will feel more in control of your day, and you will save time in the long run.

3.  Organize a bit at a time.

Although at times there are merits to doing an all-out clean-up marathon, most of our days are already filled with numerous activities.

Tackling small bits of clutter daily adds up quickly towards getting the task done.

4.  Begin with messes and clutter you see every day.

This type of clutter tends to be the most frustrating because you are constantly reminded it’s there when you walk through your home.

And, you may also be hesitant about inviting friends over because of this clutter.

So, organize your kitchen and family room before your hallway closet.

5.  Multi-tasking is overrated.

By working on multiple rooms simultaneously, you don’t see significant progress in any of them for a long time.  It becomes easy to get discouraged and give up.

Remember, the mess has been there for months, even years!  If need be, give yourself permission to leave it for another couple of months.

Focus on cleaning up one mess at a time, and enjoy the sense of accomplishment each time you complete an organizing project.

6.  It’s OK to allocate a temporary space.

If you simply cannot decide where a group of items should go, then allocate a single temporary place for them and make sure they all end up there.

Once you figure out where you want these items, they will be all together, and easy to move to their new location.

7.  Keep your momentum going.

To keep your momentum going, always decide what your next step is going to be.

After you’ve completed your organization task — regardless of whether it was a 1 minute quick tidy-up of the coffee table, or a major all-day effort cleaning out the basement– decide what you will do next.

Next time you clean, no need to ponder what to do.  You know what to do, and you will be more likely to do it.

Use these tips to help you organize your space. You will have a beautiful, uncluttered home as your reward!

Yours in friendship,
Barb

Copyright © 2011 www.ClutterClearingMadeEasy.com.  All rights reserved.

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Want to use this article in your Ezine or Website?  You can, as long as you include the complete article and the Copyright information.

Have you noticed that when you have guests coming over, you clean and de-clutter like crazy before their arrival.

You may even start tidying up visible areas in your home a day or two in advance.

You look around your home just before your guests arrive, proud of the cleaning and organizing you’ve done, and wish your home always looked this good.

And if you entertain on two separate occasions within a few days of each other, your organizing time was shorter.

You may also have made progress on another mess that you ignored previously because you just ran out of time.

I know this pattern well.  My friends and I joked often about how our homes get so cluttered day-to-day that it takes an ‘event’ to clean them up.

When I really saw the upside of this pattern of behavior in my home, I made a decision.

I will purposefully invite my friends over to my home regularly.

We will meet at my place for coffee rather than the local coffee shop, or I will invite that family over that we haven’t seen for over a year (hey, the house was always too messy to extend the invite).

AND each time I had guests coming to my home, at least one mess in the house will be better under control than before.  Not perfect, just better.

I felt less pressure than de-cluttering before a party or a family holiday event.

My friends — my real friends that is — didn’t really care how cluttered my house was.  They were happy to get together.

Yet, I still wanted my home to look and smell nice before they arrived.

The amazing thing is, it takes much less time to declutter a messy area when your guests will be showing up in less than an hour, than if you assign yourself a leisurely Saturday for the task.

As a result of this planned entertaining, the main floor of my home got consistently neater and more organized.  Cleaning and organizing the house before larger events became quicker and easier too.  And, I solved our piles-of-shoes-at-the-front-door issue along the way!

This ‘Invite People Over’ method of decluttering works because when you invite friends over, you are setting yourself a deadline.

And it’s human nature is to be more focused on the task at hand – decluttering and organizing your home — as the deadline draws near.

After all, you’re not going to un-invite your friends last minute because you haven’t finished cleaning — you’re going to finish the cleaning.

By regularly going through this process of inviting friends over and decluttering your home before their arrival, your home will be neater and more organized on a day-to-basis. 

You will feel good about your home, and less hesitant to invite people over.

You will likely notice spaces in your home that are persistent areas of clutter accumulation.  Once you have identified these clutter problem areas, you can address them with a more permanent solution.

So, if your dining room has gotten messy and you want to clean it up, invite friends over for dinner.  With our busy lives, there are always friends we haven’t seen for a while who would be more than thrilled to get together.

Kitchen counter needs tidying up?  Invite a friend or neighbor over for coffee.  Tidy up the kitchen counter before your guest arrives.

Then, relax and enjoy the time with your friends.

Yours in friendship,
Barb

Copyright © 2011 www.ClutterClearingMadeEasy.com.  All rights reserved.

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If you are just up to your wahoozles with stuff to do, but you really want to get started making a dent in your clutter, give yourself the gift of time — and 5 minutes is a good place to start.

Time is the one resource that is not renewable — once it’s gone, it’s gone.

So, if living in an organized space is important to you, make sure you dedicate some of your time to make it so.

Most people can carve out 5 minutes from their day, so it’s a good place to start.

As you work on eliminating your clutter and you see progress, you will find yourself looking for additional time to get the job done.

I understand our days are hectic, and it feels like there is always more to do than there is time for.

Yet, by ignoring clutter, the problem gets worse.

The mailman still brings the mail each day, meals are still made in the kitchen, more things will break or just get lost and forgotten about in the clutter.

Then the dreaded day comes when you can’t find something you really need amidst the clutter and you spend hours looking for it.  You may find it, you may not.  You may spend days looking for it, or give up and go buy another one.

You’ve given up a big block of time and possibly money looking for this all-important item.

If you’re so overwhelmed that even 5 minutes seems like a lot, then give yourself 5 seconds.

Throw out one piece of paper in the recycle bin, take out one expired bottle from the refrigerator, anything small that will move you closer to organizing a problem space.

Just start something, and you’ll be one step closer to a more organized home 🙂

Yours in friendship,
Barb

Copyright © 2011 www.ClutterClearingMadeEasy.com.  All rights reserved.

_________

Want to use this article in your Ezine or Website?  You can, as long as you include the complete article and the Copyright information.