Wondering what Mommy Homework is??? Each week you will have an “assignment” here to share in our comments here on this site. You will love this-both sharing AND enjoying answers by others. Some of them, I compile into an ebook (contributors can resell as a product of their own–be sure to submit your email and full name when you register so I can credit you appropriately!).
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Ready for this week’s MH? This is going to be a good one!
As I thought through my New Year’s resolutions, one just popped out–To have a decluttered and focused heart. I suspect that you will see A LOT of writing on this topic this year. Get ready!
Well, this past week, I have been decluttering my life after the busy, intense holiday season. I have cleaned out my planner and organized it so I am ready to roll on into a New Year…I am systematically working through my house re-organizing and cleaning out the clutter…I am even cleaning out my notebooks and getting them all tidy and ready for my new projects. Oh! I even decluttered my purse this week! The theme for this week if you were around me is definitely decluttering!
So, what could be a more perfect discussion for this week?
This week, let’s share the things that we do to declutter. How do you declutter your life–your schedule, your stuff, your lifestyle? Are you ready for the New Year? Is everything ready for you to kick off your new year with razor-sharp focus.
Yes, Lord, give us an uncluttered and focused heart…and life!
Ok, dearies…Dig in! I can’t wait to dig into this with you!
This will be super! Have fun! 
DIG IN!
Love ya!
Cindy
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Oh, I am SO working on this! Our main problem areas are CLOTHING and PAPERS.
I have been getting rid of a garbage bag of clothing each week. I now separate clothes from other “stuff” (toys, household items) to take the clothes for a church giveaway. Someone may need it now, and I may never need it, so I am getting better at knowing what to save and what to part with.
Then the papers!!! Hubby and I are still trying to work this one out. We do school downstairs, where we have bookshelves, then a small filing cabinet and a dresser for crafts and papers. Our desk and large filing cabinet are upstairs, and this makes organization so much harder; we have just not found the perfect fit yet.
I forget that I’m the teacher and head researcher around here. I read all the organizing tips, so I finally printed off a list from a blog about organizing for the kids. Hubby loved it! So, we’re ready to implement a few new ideas. Everyone has to pitch in!
I believe the saying “a place for everything and everything in its place.” Since we seem to be outgrowing our house, it’s time to get rid of this clutter that I can’t find a place for!
Thanks and blessings,
Danielle Hull
mdhull@kconline.com
For me decluttering starts in my heart. I need to work on letting things go in all regards. If someone wrongs me, let it go don’t sit and stew on it. If I’m sent a cute coloring page from my niece, let it go because there will always be another. Now typing that out is easy but living it…so much harder!!!
The other thing I do to declutter is find a place for everything. Ifsomething doesn’t have a place and I know we will use it – I find it a place. Sometimes that means getting rid of something else or maybe buying another bookcase or storage tub. Also labeling things in storage helps declutter because you know for sure what is in there and what you have. That saves you from buying another just like it because you couldn’t find it.
Clothes seem to be a big issue here too. I keep summer and winter clothes apart and switch out (reusing the same tub) when the season is right. At that point I get rid of that 15th-18th shirt that somehow managed to be gifted to us.
Mail. Mail is a big problem. The ads, the junk mail, the credit card applications!!! Ahahahaha!!!!!!! I try to go through the mail right away. The bills go into a special drawer, the newspaper sits on the counter until the husband reads it and the letters worthy of attention are put in a different pile (yuck another pile!). The junk mail goes right to the garage/recycle bin. Maybe you should have a Mommy Homework on what to do with all the junk mail – if there is a use for it. 🙂
Time is another big clutter mess at times. I try to keep us to a schedule without being to rigid about it. I want it to flow without causing too many ripples everyday. I have been keeping track of my spiritual/prayer life time. I have noticed treads that take away from my spiritual life. I think that is a valuable resource when it comes to declutter our lives timewise.
Karen Gebes
I love decluttering and tidying. Sounds crazy, huh? I used to love it when my desk at school would get messy enough that I could tidy it. There is such a feeling of accomplishment when everything is in it’s place. On the other hand, when things get cluttered and untidy, I feel pressurized and stressed. That makes it sound like my house is always in order. HA! That really isn’t the case.
My daily, weekly, etc. cleaning always includes decluttering and tidying. I choose a small area or one thing at a time and both clean and declutter/reorganize. I’ve been trying to use my mom’s rule, which is: While you have hot, soapy dishwater, wipe something down. Such as the front of a cabinet, window casings, etc. In other words, pick small jobs.
Linda Sprague
Hi. This is ironic that I read this now. I just today had a conversation with a friend that I ran into at Sams, while purchasing page protectors! LOL
I told her that the ONLY way she would ever get anything organized is to get rid of everything possible. She was kind of in shock of what I said but it is true. There is no way to really feel peaceful and serene in your home if you have clutter or nick knacks around the house.
I have been working on this for years, and I have come a long way. I am not there yet, but I am a lot better than I used to be. I am still unorganized though and will work on this with you all this year.
A few years ago, I had 2 friends come to my house a couple times a week and help me.
This is my first idea:
Tip 1. Get a friend or 2 to come over and help you. You really need someone else to help you decide if you really need to keep something or not. Your friends are not attached to your stuff like you are, so they can put things in a new perspective.
I needed them to ask me such things as “Do you really need this?, What will you use it for?, When or how often will you use it?, Where will it go, etc…” It is hard to get rid of your stuff, so having a fresh perspective and someone to remind you of your goals is a very helpful idea.
After my friends helped me, I have kept up with frequent decluttering. Whenever I feel the need, I go through things and see what we can get rid of. I will frequently ask the kids to go through their stuff and see if there is anything they can get rid of.
Each time I do the laundry, I look at everything to see if it still fits a child or if it is really worn out and if it fits one of those, I will toss or donate. Also, if you find that there are pieces of clothing in you or your childs closet that never get worn, get rid of them because they will inevitably end up on the floor or in the laundry or at minimum are taking up valuable closet space.
Tip 2. Go through room by room and see what you have not been using. I realized there are so many things that I do not use and do not need. A lot of it is knick knacks and odds and ends;decorative stuff. I find that I can do with little to no decorative stuff laying around the house. I like pictures or things that hang on the wall but things that sit on a surface are just clutter and make it hard to dust and keep clean. If you have too many on one surface, it just looks messy and does not give you that peaceful feeling.
So, go through each room, each cabinet and get rid of everything possible.
Tip 3. For keeping things up, I will periodically throughout the day, say to the kids, “Ok, lets all pick up twenty things from the living room” and then it is picked up and it was fast and the kids could know exactly waht was to be done and do it fast.
Sometime I will say,”let’s set a timer for 5 minutes and let’s all work in the kitchen reals fast.” When you are hurrying, you can get a lot more done than you would think.
Tip 4. Go through each room and write down what the trouble areas are. For instance, if you go into your bedroom and you have paper all over the place, write that down. You will need to come up with something to organize your papers. This is what I really need to work on myself. If you go into the bathroom and there are items out that shouldn’t be, make sure you have a spot for them and then practice putting it away.
Which brings me to my last point, at least for now, because I need to go.
Part of your becoming organized will have nothing at all to do with the organizing itself. This may be the most important thing to know. You can organize till the sun goes down, but if you do not keep it up, you will just have to keep doing it over and over. If you are constantly organizing but everything is still always falling apart, you will have to train yourself in the habit of putting everything back. Once you get organized, you may have to work really hard at making sure you are putting everything back in it’s place. I am a master organizer. I love organizing, but I can completely organize a room and a few days later it is back to disaray.
I know that more than the organizing itself, this year I will have to practice, practice, practice, until it becomes a habit that I am actually keeping up what I have already organiized.
Ok, well I have to run. I like this idea of all working together on this this year.
Oh, Wait, one more thing. We have been getting ready to move and have had a lot of our stuff packed away in the garage. I have found that we havn’t even missed hardly any of it. So, if you just can’t bear to part with some things, try packing them up in the garage and if after a certain period of time, you find yourself NOT thinking about it or needing it back, then go ahead and give it away, but at least you gave it a chance and know that you will be ok without it.
Ok, bye for now.
I really need to work on this. I am the daughter of a hoarder, and an emotional packrat.
I think knowing what my life and the life of those around me would/will be like if I don’t throw stuff away is what is keeping me from being a hoarder. It is hard for me to throw away or give away stuff that the kids had when they were small.
It is really hard getting rid of stuff because I feel like I will need it as soon as I don’t have it anymore. Organizing is so hard because I never learned how to do it. I have read many many books, websites and watch lots of TV shows on it, but it never sticks.
Being married to a man with OCD has helped me so very much too. Wanting our home to be his castle pushes me to move beyond my limits. The Lord works in strange ways. 😀
I homeschool and all the paper work that goes with homeschooling is overwhelming and frustrating to my husband. I am afraid to throw away school work from years ago because I may need it later to prove we really were schooling.
We have outgrown our home and that makes “A place for everything and everything is its place” really hard to do
I will be reading all of the advice the great ladies here have to share.
Thanks for the ideas Rondamomof2
MariaR
This is a hard one for me!! When I got married I loved it because I was able to keep a neat and homey place. But over the last few years, I seemed to be the one that my mother-in-law decided needed all the family treasures. Some tell me to just get rid of them but about the time I get rid of some of it, my kids tell on me or she will say “I gave you…and I would really like it back because it means so much” or she will say “make sure to save ___ because it meant so much to Michael”.
This has been a real battle for me and the more I try to overlook “junk” the worse it gets. I think I might just have a memory relapse sometime when she starts asking about things.
What do you do in this kind of mess?
Will be watching the different comments this week.
Thanks!
Orilla Crider
What do I do to declutter? Have more children! 🙂 Ok, not really but I have found that each new child the Lord blesses us with causes me to declutter our life more. I just had twins in November and started the new year decluttering our home and getting things organized. So far I have the kitchen done and this week I am working on the office/sewing room. I have started using a planner that is working well for me and has a cleaning plan for each day as well as a decluttering time each day. I am doing better this time by just taking a small area or time slot each day to work on instead of trying to do the whole house at once. This will probably be a lifetime project but things keep getting better and I am happy for that. I wrote down my goals for each room and as I finish each one I draw a line through it. I am a list person and feel like I am accomplishing something if I can check it off.
Cathy Dunlap
I come from a long line of keepers. Keepers of everything, whether you really like it or not. There are always guilt feelings when I want to get rid of something that someone I love got me. The problem is that I guilt myself into a cluttered unorganized home. Frustration with it is a big motivator for me. I also look around and think, if we had to move would I REALLY want to move all of this stuff. The answer is NO! I have come to realize that I just have to do it. Taking the time to assess whether what I have brings me pleasure and if I have a place for it helps me alot. Most of the time I wait until I am so frustrated that I go gangbusters, but when I am done I have many trashbags of stuff to either throw away or give away. De-cluttering is alot of work, but well worth it when you see the end result. I would recommend Don Aslett’s book Clutter’s Last Stand. Great book!
I ABHOR clutter! But it breeds and expands and moves me out of the house if I’m not careful! I am an office supply and book freak so I have to be careful about all the little cute post-it pads and stationary and books laying stacked up everywhere. I’ve learned that I work and write better when my space is clear and clean so I try to work on it every couple of days to keep it that way.
The pantry is another clutter collector meaning that when I dig trying to find the last can of mushroom soup, everything gets disturbed. When I am in a hurry to unpack groceries, things can just get tossed in until “later”! Yah, right, later! So every once in a while I have to go in and straighten, check expiration dates and reorganize.
I love the idea of having a declutter calender where you focus on one area a month. This has helped me a lot!!
Blessings!
Tara McClenahan
GodsGirl710@insightbb.com
Simplifying my life is a major goal for me this year. After a cross-country move (we gave/threw away tons of stuff) and with a short move coming soon, having nothing but what’s on my back (and my kids of course, oh wait, they are on my back most of time:-) is extremely attractive Not realistic, but attractive. We recently visited with some friends who also have a gaggle of young children and their house was totally spic-and span with everything in its place. How do they do that? I really want to know? I came home so wanting that. I realize that they probably straightened up before we arrived, but they definitely have a system fpr organizing their stuff and, let’s face it, a lot less stuff.
This is a real turn around for someone who has always had a packrat mentality and needs constant in-her-face reminders of what needs to get done and when. So I’m faced with a really big paradox. As much as I want a totally de-cluttered life, the sad truth is that I really cannot function well when everything is put away in it’s place. I can’t remember where anything is. I can’t find that book I need to review or that lapbook we were working on. I forget that I even own certain things. Lists don’t work, they get lost, and I can’t put all the vague notions that come into my head when I see a particular object into a list anyway. I’ve discovered that I’m a really visual and hands-on person. If I see and touch the object, my mind is instantly filled with possibilities for it…if I see it in a list, it’s just words on a page.
Add to this that the kids are much better at discovering learning when the tools are right there before there eyes, rather than squirreled away in a cupboard somewhere, and I really have a dilemma. How do I find an equilibrium between organizing what I have (instead of letting it all hang out, lol) and nurture a creative, learning environment that supports my ADD brain?
Maybe once we have moved to a more permanent home we can create some really organized space and balance it with a room or two designed for creative mayhem, lol.