I hope by now you’ve had a chance to read the books I recommended that motivate me to get rid of all the junk in my house: Clutter’s Last Stand and It’s All Too Much. If so, I bet you’ve got a lot less stuff in your house right now. I know it’s hard sometimes. We think we’ll need all of that stuff, someday – when we have more time, when we have more kids, when we get a bigger house, when we move to Hawaii. We really don’t need any of it. And the benefits we’ll experience because we got rid of it will far outweigh any benefit from having it on hand if we ever need it.
The next step is to figure out what to do with the stuff we are keeping. You don’t have to keep all this stuff forever. As you get rid of things and figure out that you not only can live without them, but that you can live better without them, you’ll be motivated to get rid of more.
We’re always going to have things, though. If we don’t figure out where to put it all, our house is going to be a mess.
I mentioned before that I love reading about organizing, but not much of what I’ve read has been much help. There are two books, though, that have changed the way I look at organizing.
Many years ago I saw Julie Morgenstern on TV and bought her book, Organizing from the Inside Out. What was different about her approach is that she didn’t tell me what containers to get or the “right” way to organize a filing cabinet. She told me to look at my trouble areas, figure out why they are trouble areas and then think about a new way to do things.
Here’s an example of how that worked for me. I love to read. I’ve usually got more than 20 (or 30) books checked out of the library at any given time and lots of magazines that I’m trying to read.
When my kids were little I used to sit outside and read while they played in the front yard. When it was time to go inside my reading material ended up on the coffee table, the floor near the door, next to the couch, the entertainment center or any other spot that was easy to reach. It wasn’t pretty.
While reading Organizing from the Inside Out I realized that this was an area I needed to work on. I did have a home for my reading material, a bookshelf that was in another room, they just never made it there. I moved that bookshelf to the living room, right behind the door, and literally never had a problem butting my books where they belonged again.
The House that Cleans Itself by Mindy Starns Clark uses the same basic philosophy – work with your natural tendencies instead of trying to force yourself to behave in a way that isn’t natural. What I love about this book is that she takes you step by step through finding trouble zones, figuring out solutions and setting up your house, room by room, to require less work. I’ll show you what that looks like with before and after pictures from a room in my own house later.
BONUS BOOK
A few months ago I checked out 30 Days to a Simpler Life by Chris Evatt and Connie Cox.. I was looking for a book about being less busy but this book is actually about simplifying your life by getting by with less stuff, one day at a time. (The first little part of each “day” is a short project. The rest of the suggestions will take more than one day.) For example, choose one or two nail polish colors that you like and get rid of the rest. Use towel hooks instead of towel bars so you don’t have to fold your towels every time you hang them up. Move rarely used kitchen utensils to a box on a top shelf in your kitchen. Or better yet, get rid of them. No more digging through a drawer full of stuff you use once a year to find something you use every day.
I just love this little book. The chapters are short and offer a ton of great tips on simplifying different areas of your life. I won’t be using all of them but there are enough good ones to make this a book worth reading.
Have you read any of these books? What solutions have you found for your trouble zones?
