New Year, New Home: Part 3- Daily Decluttering Habits

A peaceful home isn’t just made from a beautiful home, but also a decluttered home.  As mentioned in our previous posts (Part 1, Part 2) your environment around you will affect your mind.  But how do you get started? How do you maintain after that deep clean? The answer is in little steps each day.  

We’re firm believers that little changes make a big impact--in design and in life.  So here are our tips for decluttering each day, and keeping your home and your mind clear!  

1. Make your bed- Have you heard the saying “A tidy bed, tidy mind”?  There’s a reason such a phrase exists. As U.S. Navy Adm. (and former Navy SEAL) William H. McCraven told the 2016 graduates of the University of Texas “If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.''

"If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task, and another, and another. And by the end of the day that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed.

Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter. If you can't do the little things right, you'll never be able to do the big things right? And if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made — that you made. And a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better."

We couldn’t have said it better.  Start your day off right, your home off right--and the rest will fall into place.

2. Laundry-  I’m always amazed when I see or hear people post about the mounds of laundry they need to tackle.  Mostly because I don’t ever give myself a chance to have that as an option. Let me explain. I have two laundry baskets in our home.  One small one IN THE LAUNDRY ROOM for my kids to place their dirty items (they are three and give and can absolutely handle the task). And one basket for mine and my husband’s laundry.  When either of these get full, I do a load. I don’t have a set laundry day. Just when either of those small baskets get full. This way, I’m never surrounded by piles and piles, and the task never seems too daunting. So get yourself a smaller laundry basket. Place it INSIDE the laundry room (no lugging around the house or down stairs). Ask your children put their clothes in the basket. This way you can easily run a load when it’s full, and you’re not stuck combing the house for dirty clothes!

3. Mail/Makeup-  Don’t let a “mail pile” be a thing in your house.  As soon as you get the mail, go through it. Recycle the junk and give immediate attention to the important.  Don’t wait until tomorrow to fill out that bill. Do it right then. Not only will this keep your counters clean but also your mind, as you will subconsciously feel lighter in knowing that’s one more thing that you DON’T have to add to your mental to do list.  And besides, who cares how beautiful your kitchen is if it’s covered in piles of junk? Same thing applies to your bathroom counters. Use your makeup/toiletries and put them away. Even if this means shoving it in a bag and putting the bag in a drawer. Keep your counters clean.

4. Car- Another place that stuff tends to collect is in our cars, especially when you have kids. Get in the habit of collecting all the trash in your car when you are pumping gas. There is typically a trash can right next to the pump that makes it convenient to throw everything away.  You can also keep a Swiffer Duster cloth in your console for a quick dust of the dashboard. I mean what else are you doing while waiting for your gas tank to fill up?

5. TV- Don’t worry.  We’re not asking you to get rid of your TV.  But we are asking you to re-evaluate what you watch.  Go through your DVR (or Netflix/Hulu lists) and be ruthless about what you really want to watch versus what you watch because you got sucked in a few seasons ago.  Do you constantly say to yourself “why did I just waste 40 minutes of my life on that?” or “this show just isn’t funny anymore” or “does this do anything to better my life or just give me another excuse to put things off I need to be tackling?” Physical and mental decluttering in your home are key and television is one of the biggest culprits.  So challenge yourself to go through and delete three shows you no longer need. I did this a couple of weeks ago and it felt so good! I wondered why it had taken me so long to realize how easy it was to say “no” to a show and maybe yes to thirty minutes of a book instead.

6. E-Mail-  Just like with your DVR list, clean it out!  Ruthlessly unsubscribe and go through all unread messages.  If you want to keep some for reminders, create folders to easily find things by category (Online shopping receipts, travel info, upcoming appointments or kids events, etc).  We all know how good it feels to see a single digit number in the Unread Email notifications on our phone! Jessica can attest to this one. After shockingly realizing she had over 2,500 unread messages (she says don’t judge they were mainly from retailers, lol ). She spent an hour one evening going through her inbox and is happy to report she is down to 11.

7. Toys-  Set aside an afternoon (literally put it on your calendar so you have a date and time to hold you accountable) and go through your child’s old toys.  Even better, have THEM go through them with you. Explain to them that it’s important to get rid of things that we no longer use anymore so that another child can find joy in it.  You’ll be amazed at what they say they don’t need anymore! Drop them off at a local charity or sell them in your local consignment sale. Nothing sparks a fire like making a little extra money right?

8. 10-Minute Clean-Up-  Take 10 minutes out of every day to do a quick sweep through the house, putting everything back in its rightful place.  Use a basket and go from room to room picking up everything that you see that doesn’t belong in that space. This will make for easy collecting and also save you time (no trips back and forth!) when putting everything away. Everyone has 10 minutes a day. Make it fun, turn on some music and get your family involved! I like setting a timer (like Google Home) that goes off when it’s done and my kids do too. Everything is more fun when it’s a race!

9. Vacuum a room-  Yep, you heard us. Pick one room a day to vacuum and much like the laundry in tip 3, you’ll never spend more than 10 minutes at a time vacuuming!  If you have a Roomba, even better. Lock that guy in a room and let him do his thing for a little while and then move him to the next room while you’re putting in your one load of laundry. :)

10. Wash Your Face-  If you follow us on Instagram, you know that we recently saw Rachel Hollis’ documentary and it truly spoke to us!  Much like making your bed starts your day off right, washing your face at night helps you end it right. Take the extra 2-3 minutes and do your skin a favor!  

2019 is your year to create a peaceful home, peaceful mind and it starts with one bed, one change, one task!  Five minute changes create days, weeks and months worth of peace! We’ve got this!