clutter

Here’s the plan for kickstarting my spring cleaning this year. I wrote here that I was motivated to do a purge of the house before even starting to clean. So for seven days (starting today) we’re going to try to get rid of one 30 gallon trash bag of stuff.

Some of these will be trash; some will be Salvation Army, freecycle, or kids consignment. In fact, I already have a huge Salvation Army bag taking up room in the closet so that will be easy – just drop it off!

The point is to stop being frustrated by stuff that’s in the way and just get rid of it!

For instance, today is out of date coupon inserts. It shouldn’t take that long, but oh the room in the file cabinet that will be made for other papers currently cluttering up other places!

Sound like a plan? I’ll try to keep you posted on how it goes! If you feel like joining in on the great pre-spring-cleaning-purge-7-large-trash-bags-of-stuff-in-a-week campaign, let me know!

I have a strong aversion to sticky notes.

At some point in the past I promised myself that I would never have them in my house and so far I’ve stuck to it. (pardon me while I laugh at how horrible that joke was)

You see, my mom was an amazing woman. I’m pretty sure she’s never forgotten a single thing in her entire life. She would make lists of the lists she needed to make, sticky notes for the sticky notes she needed to write, and plans for the things she wanted to plan. Okay, that might be a little exaggerated.

The bottom line is that she remembered everything and was and still is way ahead of the game.

Right above that bottom line is that she used endless lists and sticky notes to stay that way.

Let’s just say, at some point in my teenage years I became not a fan.

Then I got married.

I have a fairly good memory, so I did quite well for awhile just using my twenty-something old steel trap.

Then I had kids. (plural, in case you missed the “s”)

All of the sudden, the lists became vital.

The sticky notes, however, I could not surrender to.

Happily, I found a practical and pretty solution.

My awesome uncle and aunt who lived in Hong Kong for years would give us these beautiful journals covered in these amazing Asian fabrics. It hit me one day that these could be my perfect solution!

I now have a lifesaver notebook where I keep all my lists, schedules, plans, goals, menus, grocery lists, Christmas gift ideas… you name it. It’s in my pretty pink book.

Now, beyond being in the book, it’s actually not that organized, but that’s just sort of how I operate. It’s not hard at all to find what I need.

Best of all, every time I pull it out (which is approximately fifty-seven times a day), I get to touch the awesome fabric. And see how pretty it is. And be excited to make a list.

Correct that, the best thing of all is that it can go with me everywhere I go.

This might not work for everyone, but if you struggle with multiple papers in crazy places, you might want to give it a try!

My favorite practical help from this idea is that I never lose my menu and grocery list on the way home from the store. Seriously, I couldn’t help but think that the bag boy would snatched it just for contempt. I always used to lose my hard-planned menu on the way home from the store!

But you can’t lose a pretty book!