On my blog/ministry I help moms (really just women in general) declutter in a non-overwhelming, sanity-taking-back way.
After seeing a few posts in a Catholic Mama’s FB Group about needing to clear clutter. I thought, what better time than now to post my general *tips*, tricks, rules and guidelines to get your decluttering butt in gear.
1) Make sure you know what you're going to do with the stuff you discard. Where exactly are you donating to? Make sure trash and donation items go OUT of the house immediately after your purge. The longer they sit in bags or boxes in the house, the longer time you give it to creep back into your clean home.
2) Go into each room with 4 bins/buckets/boxes/bags - one for recycling, one for trash, and one for donations and one for stuff that doesn't belong in that room but needs to stay in your house just in its proper place. For the women who have a room full of stuff I suggest taking it ALL out to the driveway to sort - that way you’re only bringing back in your house the things that are essential!
3) Fight the urge to clean the room you are in during your declutter time. You are here to declutter, not deep clean. I repeat, YOU ARE HERE TO DECLUTTER NOT TO CLEAN. Once your whole house is decluttered, you'll have so much time to clean all the things because you won't be spending your precious time putting away all the things.
4) Only work on one room/space at a time. And don't leave that room until it's done. It is so easy to go from room to room putting clutter away that when the day is over, you've 1/2 done all the rooms and the whole house looks a mess. This is why that laundry basket helps! I suggest that any items that aren't being trashed, donated, or recycled and need to be put back in their proper homes go into a little bag or basket by the door of the room you are currently in. Once you're finished with decluttering that room, go put all the misplaced things back to their homes. Spend your entire set aside time decluttering that one room, not getting distracted by tons of other things needing to be put away.
5) Have FUN.. Put on some music and JAM girl. Everyone will know you're occupied and its great for the soul! Plus, getting rid of clutter is so freaking therapeutic I can't even explain it how awesome the feeling is. Do this on a weekend or day where you can do this alone, with minimal interruption.
⭐️⭐️ Now, once you're into the actual room you are going to declutter with your 4 containers ⭐️⭐️
Define what this room IS and IS NOT.
I want to define some things that I don't consider part of different rooms for the sake of this post (which is also an upcoming Podcast Episode!).
🛀🏻Bathrooms are for hygiene, baths, potty, and cleaning the bathroom
- Not a storage area for anything but that
🛌Bedroom is for sleeping and snuggly time, we like to code word this mommy daddy time as "butter" haha. Maybe TMI, sorry to this mom, inlaws or sister if y’all see this 😂😂😳. And for prayer 🙏🏻. It's not a room we watch tv in, or fold laundry in, for example.
OF COURSE things will float into these rooms but this process of defining the purpose of each room is so that you establish your ground zero for each room, the state it should be back in pretty much every night before bed.
Secondly, you’re going to define what this room IS:
🚽The bathroom is made for showering/bathing, doing your business, and hygiene in the morning and evening. The only things that should be in this room are things you use in this room and only in this room.
The 🛋 living room for us) is for TV 📺 and some baby toys. Big kid toys float in there but they get put away every night.
Now you get to set some space boundaries - choose a space for certain items. Once that space is filled with those items you know you have too much and need to purge again.
Examples
--Bookcases 📚- where all books belong, if they don't fit on the book case, you need to purge.
--Pantry - if food is not fitting in the pantry, or fridge, it's time to go through it.
—Kid's Toys - Define specific spaces, shelves, containers for each set of toys. An example we have is Barbies. We have a 11x11 plastic target container. Once barbies start overflowing out of that then we know it’s time to get rid of some. I go into more about purging kids toys and getting them involved in the upcoming podcast episode!
Now, you've done all the defining so you're actually going to start the great mama purge of 2019!
When you pull something out first ask
— Is this trash? Expired? If so, toss it in the trash bag (or recycle)
— Is this necessary? Do we need this item or could something we already own do the job? If so, donate.
— Is this a duplicate? You don’t need 6 different wide flat hair brushes. Why do we have 6? I don’t know. Toss all but the ones you absolutely need. (Or donate if it’s not something like a hair brush).
Now some psychology about how the LESS will help create less clean up time... not having excess for stuff used regularly.
Example towels or clothes OR dishes.
- Having more than 1-2 towels per person means you'll grab a clean towel before you wash your towel. which will just lead to TONS of towels needing to be washed and you putting it off. Which leads to BAM one huge day of laundry where you feel like a slave to the towels!
- Having more than 1-2 dishes per person in the family will contribute to the same issues. Which is easier in the short term? Washing the dish in the sink or grabbing a clean one out of the cabient? Clearly, grabbing the clean one. Estimate a day of those habits - for my family of 6 that would mean by dinner time I will have 18 plates, cups, silverware, plus all the stuff I used to prepare the meals. When we went down to 1 plate per person - it made me clean up completely after each meal. Done and ready to go for the next. It's been a lifesaver.
---Note, we are not shiny fancy people. When we have guests over I just paper plate it up. No shame in my mom game. It allows me to enjoy the company and the meal and not worry about all the lingering mess!
This kinda"one of everything" mindset really helps during meal prep too - if you don't have 1800 mixing bowls to keep grabbing, you just quickly wash a mixing bowl before the next stuff you're putting in it. The dishes can't pile up in the sink and cleanup is super fast when you're actually all done cooking or baking.
Another question you need to ask before you're done with an item is --- Does this item, or group of items live here?
If yes, put it where it should be in this room ASAP. If they DO belong in your house but just not in the current room you are in, you’re going to put that in your “I'm going to put all this stuff away once I'm done with this room" basket.
You've really got to think about each item logically - ask yourself, “if I were looking for this, what is the FIRST place I would look?”
THAT’s probably where that item should live. If that is NOT in the room you're currently in, put it in the laundry basket for being put away later.
When putting things back and doing your initial big purge do your best to keep flat surfaces clear. By flat surfaces I mean kitchen counters, bath counters, edges of bath tub, toilet tanks, tops of cabinets, stove tops, mantels, etc. Not only does it look so.. stinking' pretty 🙌🏻🙌🏻 but it is easier to wipe clean on a regular basis because you don't have to move anything out of the way.
The biggest bonus I've found is that with flat, clear surfaces - when they do gather some sort of clutter that doesn't belong there because that area should be clear, it really looks out of place. Mentally it will bug you until its put away! Won't take long before you are keeping all those flat surfaces consistently clear. Its heaven, ya'll - believe me!
When you're done with your purge. Get the stuff out of your house IMMEDIATELY. If you don’t it WILL wander back in your house. Trash goes to the outside can, same with recycle, donations go to the trunk of the car immediately and then you put your “lives in my house but not in this room” basket items away.
Fight the other overwhelming urge, to sell your stuff. Its time consuming, never makes much money AND you can get more from the tax deduction for straight donations to 503(c) charities! My rule is that if it's probably not going to legit get me over $100 then it's not worth the time to sell it somewhere. Craigslist is sketchy, I've gotten stood up way too much on FB marketplace AND holding onto everything for a yardsale that really won't make much money is a pain in the behind (not to mention you’ve got to then hold on to all of your clutter!)
Find an accountability buddy, post on social media before and after pictures, be proud of your decluttering! Because you're taking back your sanity!
If you want to join my 14 day FREE decluttering challenge, head to https://www.holyhotmessmom.com/…/declutter-all-the-things-…/ to sign up!
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