Donate Your Old Clothes
September 4th, 2008
One of the big things that clutter up a house is clothing. Even if you keep your clothes organized and neat in your closets there is a good chance that you’ve got a bunch of clothes that you no longer use or no longer fit. A great way to declutter your house is to go through all those old clothes and get rid of the ones that you don’t use or don’t fit.
Be ruthless
I know I’ve made impulse purchases in the past where I bought clothes and never wore them. It was a good idea at the time but I ended up wasting money on something that now takes up space in my closet and my dressers. Get rid of this stuff, even if there’s a tag still attached to the item. If you’re particularly attached to your old clothes have a friend help you sort through the clothing. Reducing clutter can really simplify your house.
Donate
Rather than simply throwing out the clothing donate it, most cities have charities that accept clothing as donations. If the clothing you’re getting rid of is in pretty good shape give it to one of these charities. By doing this you can help while clearing out clutter.
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A clean slate
July 3rd, 2008
The main reason that I wanted to start this blog was to write about my experiences in simplifying our new house. I started this site before we got into our new house in hopes that I would be able to get a jump start on the process. Unfortunately life doesn’t always give us the time to do what we would like. We’re in our new house now and we’re starting to get things organized.
We, my wife and I, have a clean slate for the simplified house and a great deal of stuff that we need to do. There are more things to do than I would like but the most important part is that we’ve got a fresh start and some extra space to get ourselves organized. The first project that we’ll be undertaking before we unpack everything is painting the walls - though this will have to be done around working schedules. A significant chunk of this will happen over the weekend and I’ll post about our experiences early next week.
Keeping a house simple shouldn’t be hard but I find that our lives are inundated with stuff and clutter that are totally unnecessary. We buy all sorts of new things and when it comes down to it there’s no reason to spend all that extra money or keep all that stuff. I tried to declutter as I packed but inevitably a lot of stuff came along for the move. After the paining it will be time for another round of decluttering.
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Need to Clean? Invite Guests
June 3rd, 2008
One of the things I remember most about Rita Emmett’s book The Procrastinator’s Handbook
The benefit here is that we don’t have to clean the place from top to bottom when we invite our friends over; we just have to make it neat and tidy. This is a great way to get yourself into gear and it works quite well, at least for me because by inviting someone over we set a deadline for ourselves and we don’t have the luxury to be half done when they arrive. It also prevents us from making more of the job than a quick tidying up is.
Another thing to remember is this quick clean is a great starting point for keeping your place neat and organized all the time. Maintaining a clean house or a clean kitchen is less effort than doing a mass cleaning once in a while (and mentally less draining). If you need more ideas on motivating yourself especially if you’re a procrastinator check our Rita Emmett’s book: The Procrastinator’s Handbook
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Start Small
April 30th, 2008
Getting organized and simplifying your house can be a daunting task especially if your place is a small disaster area. Don’t get overwhelmed and quit before you begin. Start small - even 5 minutes a day can make a huge impact. That 5 minutes a day ads up to 1825 minutes a year or 30 hours and 25 minutes. If I haven’t gotten your attention yet this is almost a full work week (actually almost 4 work days). Imagine what you could do in that 30 hours of time.
By starting small you can start making a dent right away in organizing your house. Understandably 5 minutes doesn’t allow you to repaint the walls or refinish the floors but it’s enough time to pick the dirty laundry off the floor and put it in the hamper or washing machine. Just to get you stared here’s a list of 5 minute ideas that you can start with:
- get a load of laundry going
- pick up dirty laundry and put it in the hamper
- take out the trash
- start a folder for your mail
- pay your bills and file the receipts away
- load your dishwasher
Remember start small, each and every 5 minutes makes a difference however small. This is what I’ve done to get the decluttering and organizing process started.
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