Clear the clutter
/I know I'm not alone in the never ending battle against clutter in my home. Like weeds left untended, my countertops, closets, drawers, tabletops, purse, even my car, can become a bottomless pit of "stuff." It seems to take no effort at all for the piles to grow in the blink of an eye yet a great deal of time and effort is required to tackle the mess after the fact.
To make our lives easier, my husband and I make every effort to implement more intentional, proactive solutions to keep our clutter at bay. I hope they can help you too!
First, let’s get the tough love out of the way - and I’m talking to myself just as much as anyone else - exercise self control!
No impulse buying.
If you can't afford it, don't buy it.
If you don't need it, don't buy it.
If you don’t have a place for it, don’t buy it.
If you already have it, don’t buy it.
I think you get the idea…and as for all the stuff you already have:
If you don't love it, get rid of it.
If you don't use it, get rid of it.
If you didn’t even know you had it until you cleaned out the far corners of your home and pulled it out covered in dust, get rid of it.
Now that we have that out of the way we can discuss what to do on a regular basis to keep all the other clutter at bay.
1. Can we talk about all the paper?
The amount of paper that comes into our homes can be mind numbing - bills, magazines, junk mail, schoolwork, catalogues you never signed up for, advertisements and on and on…
*This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate or other affiliate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. Shopping through affiliate links in no way impacts the price you pay. Whether you shop through my links or not, my hope is you find products you love and function well in your home.* - Dena
The little display pictured above exemplifies the amount of junk mail & miscellaneous paper that flooded our home over the course of several weeks, not including the mail we actually opened & papers filed away. Crazy! Here are a few ways we try to tackle the paper monster in our home:
Sort your mail immediately - as soon as you walk in the door, decide what to trash, recycle and/or keep.
Remember in my post, A Mom’s Guide to Organization, we talked about EVERYTHING having a home? Find a home for the mail you keep. Where will you house the bills that need to be paid? Where will the magazines you want to read live until you get to them? P.S. If you have a mountain of unread magazines, perhaps reconsider keeping them.
At our house, we keep a paper recycle bin right outside our door to the garage. When we bring the mail in, it is immediately sorted and either trashed, recycled or put in its home. No more piles on the kitchen island! Some mail we don’t even bring in the house - it is dropped in the recycle bin on our way in.
Ask to be removed from unwanted catalogue mailing lists. This may take a few minutes of your time but is well worth the effort if you are up to your eyeballs with every random catalogue that is of no interest to you. Similarly, if you don't read the newspaper tossed on your driveway every morning, ask them to stop delivery.
Go paperless when you can - many credit cards, bank statements, insurance EOBs, etc. can now be received and stored electronically in your online accounts. Some even offer perks to switch to paperless.
Have a designated space for children's artwork and/or schoolwork to go and only keep the pieces that mean the most to you. This is a real challenge for me as I want to keep every little scrap and scribble but it’s just not feasible. So, every day when we get home from school, I immediately sort through the paperwork in my son’s folder using the same process I mentioned for our mail above. I’ve also created a filing system for the artwork, papers and report cards kept so they can be put in their home right away.
2. Now let’s address the toys, shall we?
Kids toys have an amazing ability to seemingly multiple themselves in the blink of an eye - birthdays, Christmas, kid’s meal prizes, every semi-holiday, class parties at school - the toys come from every corner of the earth to reside in our homes!
I bought several of these shoe size bins (pictured above) for my son’s smaller “collections.”
I don’t own these flip top bins (pictured below) but they are adorable and priced well.
My favorite toys are, of course, the sets with a million tiny pieces like these army men pictured above! Wouldn’t you agree?! For toy storage, I prefer stackable, clear bins with lids for as many of my son’s toys as possible.
I also bought a handful of these medium/large sizes for larger toy sets.
(Medium pictured above; large pictured below)
From my experience with my three boys, there is great value in sorting through your children's toys on at least a semi-regular basis. Our kids are so blessed to have more toys than they know what to do with (and sometimes don't even remember they have). So I try very hard, at least twice a year (once in the summer and once at Christmas), to go through their rooms (with them!) and make three piles - one for trash, one for donations and one for items to keep.
Each item kept must have a home, not just piled up on their nightstands or shoved in a drawer or their closets. For items we donate, typically the clothes and toys go to our local Goodwill collection center and we often donate books to our local library. I notice a real difference if we miss one of these clean-outs and it just makes the process harder the next time around. In addition, not only does this help my children recognize just how blessed they really are, they also learn how to take care of and appreciate their belongings as well as the joy of blessing others.
To see more decorative toy storage ideas, check out this blog post, Easy & Attractive Basket Decor.
3. Consider taking a critical look at areas of your home that don’t get attention on a regular basis such as closets, storage cabinets, the garage, attic, and/or any other out of sight storage spaces you have in your home. You will likely be amazed what, and just how much, is collecting dust in these areas. If you haven’t missed it in all the years you’ve lived there, you may realize you don’t need it and it can go. Thus, freeing up valuable storage space for the items you do need.
Some clean-out projects are quick and easy but others can be more daunting. I’ve found working on larger clean-out projects one at a time helps to prevent feeling overwhelmed. I personally make small, attainable goals for cleaning days; for example, one day it’s the pantry, one day it’s the laundry room, one day it’s my closet, etc. If it's a big project, like organizing family photos, bite off little chunks at a time and stick with it even if it seems to take forever to accomplish. You’ll be glad you did in the long run!
Lastly, remember this is a family affair! To be successful at keeping a consistently tidy home, the process has to involve everyone living under that roof. No one is too big or too small to contribute something! I talk more about this in my recent post, A Mom’s Guide to Organization.
Anyone else have successful tips for keeping the clutter at bay they’d like to share? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below! Let’s help each other!
With love,
Dena
For more product links to home organization items we use in our home, click here.
Learn more about Dena and Overhaul Designs here.
