Clutter makes people crazy. It causes stress and anxiety. Having guests over becomes an embarrassment or an event that can be an ALL-DAY preparation. Your home should be an escape from stress. A place that is peaceful. Right?
But what if they LIVE WITH YOU? And they are the ones bringing in the clutter or they just don’t follow the rules of order.
Obviously, children learn from their role models. Mom and Dad–THAT’S YOU.
A few years ago, I was inspired by a friend who would often talk about a book that she was reading from Maria Kondo that is a tidy master. From her inbox to her sock drawers. This neat lady ended up with her own Netflix series! I did watch the first few episodes and I had to stop. Not that it wasn’t good ideas. It was enough for me to get myself in order to begin a process that I have been dreading. It was time to shut my office space down and declutter it. The highlight of that entire experience is I felt an enormous amount of satisfaction from shredding documents. The documents were mostly no longer relevant. Like billing statements from companies that don’t exist anymore or tradeshow white papers. Invest in a shredder and go-to-town. You’ll thank yourself later.
Don’t Let Your Family Be The Excuse For The Clutter
After a few years of raising children it has really effected the way that I view my home. My tea room where my Ethan Allen collection resided at has been a toddler escape zone. It’s not an escape for me to enjoy my preferred beverage and have adult conversation. My children throw down my custom cushions to jump on them. I have had a handful of people try to give their opinions of transforming that room into a daycare type of suite. Where we fill it with kid-friendly plastic furniture, toys and legos galore. This particular room is located near the front entrance of my home and I just took their “suggestion” and put it in the back of my mind.
Have you stepped on toy debris?
So not only I am in the midst of decluttering I have growing children that are active. REALLY ACTIVE. We have bought plastic tubs to pick up the toys to put away quickly. It only works if you have places to put it away where you can initiate out of sight out of mind. Eventually the tubs start piling. And you just have to do something. Last year in my successful Keto journey, I made the conscience choice to remove things out of my closet. Clothes that don’t fit anymore. Or it is just not something I will wear and it ended up in a Toss, Donate or Keep pile. Thankfully my husband was on board with this and downsized a considerable amount of our wardrobe.
DVDs, Nintendo gaming units, piles of albums and useless stuff went away on Trash Day.
Don’t Be A Dumping Location For Your Family’s Junk
I am not going to go into any dirty details, because I just don’t need the family drama. Here is a video from the Holderness family to take that next action to ask yourself, does this item bring you joy?
Coming Soon A Renovated Master Closet and Bath
In the end, this path doesn’t happen over night. Although, I am sure there are others who may say, hold my beer. In my case, I have a vision of achieving a purposeful closet and living spaces. After my husband and I successfully tackle what was staying in our closet. He has come along side with me in capturing the vision of renovating our closet space. I started a video of that process of decluttering my master closet. But I want to add the renovations to it before it is published. My husband got siked and started looking for furniture to put in our Master Bedroom. I had to explain that is defeating the purpose of renovating and utilizing the closet space. From there he temporarily moved some dresser furniture into the closet from our Master Bedroom. And it is starting to come together of the possibility of what I would like to achieve with custom built-ins. Which sparked the conversation to seriously improve our Master Bathroom too.
Overall, my stress levels have decreased substantially. I am glad that I didn’t keep waiting around. Buying the tubs may not have been the best choice to really access how to best decrease the clutter. Sometimes purchasing organizational tools can feed into the consumer philosophy. When we organize excess we are spending even more time sorting and taking care of stuff. Collecting dust in some cases. Taking the steps to get rid of it once and for all gives us more time to doing the things that are truly important to us.
