Clear The Clutter For Clearer Thinking...

Let's be honest, life is BUSY! Between kids, work, and all the other circus like events that infiltrate our days, organization takes the back seat quite often.  If you are like me, you find yourself uttering "I have got to get this stuff cleaned up" daily but at the end of the week the mess remains.  Then all of a sudden you are on Facebook trying to avoid responsibility like a normal person and the name Marie Kondo is mentioned in every other post. 

If you are living under a rock and have no clue who she is, let me summarize it for you. She can fold anything and everything she owns into a freaking cube and she wants you to throw anything that doesn't bring you joy away or donate it.  Her Konmari method is all over Pinterest in case you feel like making yourself feel like the most unorganized person EVER!  Ok, so I may be cracking a lot of jokes about her method BUT in reality I love the idea around it. 

Clutter makes me anxious and incredibly grumpy. It affects my work flow and it really can tempt me to burn the whole house down.   I tend to be a minimalist in many areas (except my wardrobe) so embracing the "less is more" ideal is not a difficult one but finding the time to purge is the issue.  I truly wish I could devote an entire weekend to tidying but that's not a reality for me. 

Yesterday, I hit a breaking point though. I woke up and headed to make our morning coffee, dodged the kitten, tripped over the dog, and came face to face with the pile of STUFF on my dining room table.  It flipped my switch and I proceeded to cancel ALL of our Saturday plans.  Being the realist I mentioned above I knew here was NO way I was getting the entire house done in one day. But I vowed to get 3 rooms done.  I chose our kitchen/pantry area, dining room, and my home office. These are the 3 areas I traffic the most during the week as well as the 3 biggest offenders outside of my tiny humans rooms.  I purged EVERYTHING that honestly shouldn't have been saved like ever. I scrubbed cupboards, counters, and baseboards along the way.  I sent my son to the garbage can 7 times and even inspired my daughter to start sorting thru her mass amounts of toys.  It took all freaking day but with each garbage bag filled, I found myself feeling lighter, my creativity pick back up, and I used the time to daydream about February goals. I even fell back in love with a few things in my house that were hidden by the mounds of clutter. You were right, Marie, I found joy!  I even approached Nicki about writing this very blog post because along the way I came up with a surefire formula to survive the battle of the clutter and get the purge process going. 

A couple things happened during the great cleaning rampage of Saturday, my realization that we accumulate way too much stuff became clearer than ever and I have reworked my schedule so I will have the entire house purged by mid-February.  Will I ever be the master folder that Marie Kondo is? Heck no, but I did clear enough clutter to find a ton of hangers I had been looking for. You don't have to fold if you just hang everything up.

Have a fabulous week!
Danielle