How Can You Live An Organized Life, With a Cluttered Home?
If you choose to read this blog, laugh when I tell you, I wrote it before trying to watch Marie Kondo Tidies Up on Netflix. Let’s also acknowledge the fact, that I didn’t make it more than 1/2 way through the first episode and I fell asleep… not my kind of show. But, if you know what I’m talking about.. I am basically saying, lets Marie Kondo your home! Now to the blog…
There’s a great show on TV. The kids need lunches for tomorrow at school. You’re dying to read your new book. Shit, you just forgot your gas tank is on E. I get it, a million things to do in a day and likely a million things that you will put ahead of one of the most important!
Cleaning and decluttering your home!
It’s a new year, so a “new” you, right? Please explain to me how you plan to take on the world if the place you spend most your time, wake up each morning to a new (kick-ass) day, sit down to plan your future… is cluttered. A cluttered home often leads to a cluttered mind. A cluttered mind won’t lead you to live your best life!
Don’t get me wrong, I am the Queen of a mess. I can find you any paper you need (in 15 seconds) on my desk that holds half a printer-full of documents. I can tell you my black high-heels (that I love) are in the back of my SUV just in case I run late for an appointment. Or, that t-shirt I know I bought last week but haven’t seen since, likely is in a pile of clothes (that should be hung) to the left of my bed. My point is- I am there with you, if you my statement is crazy! I’ve always lived in chaos and done just fine.
That was, until, I started looking at parts of my life and questioning how I can make them better? Make me better. No, this wasn’t a 2019 resolution that I’ve just set and will forget about 3 months from now… this was about 6 months ago when I started to look around and question what was really necessary.
For anyone who has lived on their own for more than 5 years, or even better, in multiple houses, this idea of “de-cluttering” could be extremely overwhelming. I get it. I live in a large home, where my husband and I combined our two fully stocked single homes into one. Things moved fast back then and we found ourself over-stocked and drowning in multiples of items we likely would never use. A number of years passed by and we found ourselves with… even more, crap!
Instead of thinking we were super-humans, we chose to go through room by room in our home and only keep what we saw value in and actually used. Although this sounds like a less-than-stellar task, we made it fun! Example: for our kitchen, we opened a bottle of wine, turned on the music and laughed as we went through each drawer and questioned how many cutting knives one could possibly need? I promise you, you don’t need 20, as we had!
Next, the kids’ bedrooms, the amount of “special” papers sent home from school, would astonish you! The bags of clothes that were too small (so we donated), the toys that had been lost under beds, the socks that were tucked behind dressers… you get it!
Slowly but surely, the house was becoming that much more organized. The craziest part? I felt lighter. I would open the door to my kids’ bedrooms and, they were clean! I would open the utensil drawer in my kitchen and there was the exact knife I was looking for.
I started to wake up with a clearer head and let me tell you, not much feels better than that. I realized that the organization in my home was relating to my mood, and it felt good. Now continuing the story, the house is not done. My closet is probably the most needed room but also the scariest… so just remember, it’s about “little by little” and “step by step”.
In “Made for More” the Rachel Hollis documentary, she says something along the lines of; people always think “if I had more money, I could do this. Fortunate for you, cleaning is free. So now what’s your excuse?”
Who’s with me? It’s time to declutter and live a life that is made for more.
