The tour continues! In an effort to create a less chaotic environment in my home, I’m attempting to address several different areas in my home. My guest room, as the 2nd bedroom in my house is my office and the place where I put items that I don’t know what to do with them yet. Stuff just accumulates and grows and before long it’s just a huge chaotic mess.
Having a friend stay with me for a couple of days, necessitated the clean out. In other words, it made me do what I should have been doing from the start! Everything needs a home! So I pulled most everything out, shampooed the carpet and rug and found a home for other items. Honestly, some stuff I just put back where it needed to go!
Don’t judge me!! This is real life!
BEFORE
This is the view walking into the room. I can’t tell you how many times I hit my toes on stuff!! Of course, there is all kinds of stuff here-wood for my projects, shelves that I intended for a project and then changed my mind, items from my bathroom refresh that I need to either use, find a spot to keep, or donate.
This view is from the left side of the room. You can see that I have lots of stuff here, my exercise bike, desk, boxes, a couch filled with stuff (mostly stuff to be donated) and random papers on top of tv trays.
This is the view looking more toward the hallway. Because I’m working from home now I have another computer and some paperwork items from the office which take up some space. In truth, I’ve always had a lot of paperwork items and stuff around my desk area.
Again, the best thing I can do moving forward is to just put stuff where it belongs AND give myself a time limit. I’m hoping that as I clear things out I will have more space for the things that I want to keep.
AFTER
Whew!! It’s much nicer to work in a space that is not all cluttered with stuff! I still have work to do in here-the frame needs photos, a picture that needs to be put up, and some other items that need to be gone through.
The two things that had the biggest impact was (1) clearing the items from near the front of the door and (2) getting everything off of the couch. If I can keep the couch cleared, then I’ll know that I’m the right track!
Maybe now that the floor is clear, I can pull out the yoga mat and get to it! Really though, having the clear floor increases the likelihood that I might get back to doing some floor work including strength training and stretching-it’s been way too long!
YAY!!
How do you keep your spaces clear? I really want to be the type of person whom clutter makes anxious. It is not a natural trait for me-both of my parents are and were “collectors”!
Any advice for me? Share in the comments!
Be honest with yourself – if clutter doesn’t make you anxious, it won’t start. But you can set boundaries for yourself and begin with small habits that you commit yourself to doing because it’s something you want to do, are comfortable with and know that you will be able to hold yourself accountable. Before anything else, you need to start with defining your “why” and it really needs to be important to you. Write it down and anything else that you’re committing to – it will make it much stronger.
As to the “how” – one of the best tricks I’ve learned from an organizing blog was to take the extra 30 seconds to 5 minutes to take care of an item rather than just ignoring it, no matter how tired or busy I am. I’ve done this for things like wiping out crumbs from a drawer when I see them (20 seconds), and not turning it into a huge project for cleaning all the drawers (hours). I also do this trick on things like going through and getting rid of the mail every day and putting things back as soon as I’m done with them. The same can be said for figuring out what to do with items when they come in the door. For items where you need it to hang around for a while, I like your idea of giving yourself a time limit, but I’d suggest setting aside a specific day/time for addressing those items or setting an alarm and sticking to it.
The thing where I continue to struggle is with filing, but it’s getting better. I got rid of a lot of incoming paper and do electronic, so that’s one thing. (It creates a new issue where I need to set aside time every quarter to download my copy so I don’t lose it if they decide to delete it). But I still have a pile on the office bed every day that goes into the closet when company comes over 🙁 But like I said – baby steps with small habits – I hope to have this under control by the end of the summer! Check back with me in September!