Calm the clutter & make your Home your Haven with these habits! #habits #getorganized #declutter

One thing I get asked a lot is how to stay clutter free. A lot of people can do the work to clear clutter, but it's hard to keep it from coming back. You know, there's nothing worse than spending the weekend cleaning out a garage. And then a month later you find out that you've got piles starting and you can't open your cabinets because everything's starting to accumulate. You clean the kitchen counter and you've got a pile starting to come back. And people, people are leaving different things there in your entryway. The shoes are out of control, right? I've been there, trust me. I have had to work on this over the years, but I have 10 habits for to look at and adopt and try to see if you can start to make change. My challenge to you is not to try all 10 of them at once. Pick three of them and try to work on them over the next month and see if it helps you remain clutter free. So the first one that I want to mention is it's important you regularly declutter. You need to set aside time, designate it once a month, once a season. And you need to go through your home, you need to go through your belongings and get rid of things that no longer serves you, brings you joy, fits you, works, all that good stuff. And I know it can be a drought, but here's some ways that you can make it fun. First way to do it is to grab your headphones so that your hands free and that you can, you're free to work, create a playlist. Whatever songs you find motivating, play them. Music. Music is such a motivator in itself, but when it's your favorites, you can be rocking out while you're decluttering around the house. And who cares what everyone in your house thinks? Because you're decluttering and making a difference in everyone's life. If you don't want to listen to music, get an audiobook. And one fun thing to do is make it so that the only time you can listen to book is when you're decluttering, because then you'll be motivated to go back the next day and listen further. Now, another thing you can do that sometimes people like or don't like is invite a friend over. It makes it so much more fun and sometimes it helps out. But I understand that some people don't want their friends in their space when there's clutter. So that's okay. If you're doing something like going through your clothes or working in the garage and you don't mind having a friend over, invite someone over, get your favorite beverage of choice, and declutter while you're visiting. This is so much fun and it makes it so much easier. And they can even help you with the decision making. Because it never fails that we keep things. Could have, should have, they don't fit. You know all those. We have all these reasons why we should keep something, but in the end we probably do need to let it go. And a friend can help hold you accountable to making those hard decisions. Another thing you can do is download some sort of printable there's 30 day challenges, there's bingo decluttering, there's all sorts of things that you can download. I'll even link one in the video description that you can download. That's fun. Go through it and if you complete it, let me know and I'll enter your name into a giveaway drawing and give you a virtual high five. That's definitely something you can do. Gamifying something. If that's what motivates you, I'm all for it. The second habit is to practice the one in one out rule for every new item that enters your home, get rid of an old item. This will help prevent clutter from building up over time. A lot of people know this rule, but very few practice it. If you practice it, comment below in the video and I will definitely give you a virtual high five because that is awesome. The best place to think about this is before you bring something into your home. If you are at a home store and you find a candle that you want, think about if you really need it and if the answer is yes, mark in your mind which candle you're going to get rid of when you get home and hold yourself to it. If you're shopping for a new pair of shoes, think ahead of time while you are trying them on. Which pair will this replace? Maybe it's not like any other pair of shoes you have. Just think of one that you'll be considering to get rid of if you make that purchase. The same is true if you're buying sporting equipment, linens, clothes, electronics, anything like that. Make sure you think about the one in one out rule and you will find that clutter will not creep up as fast. Make it a habit to always put things away as soon as you're done using them. Don't leave them laying around, as this can quickly lead to clutter. And I know sometimes it feels like we're just running from one thing to another and we don't have time. But if you took out, for example, a pair of scissors to cut something, take another 10 seconds to put them back. It's really all that it takes. Maybe it'll take you 20 seconds because it's from one side of the house to another, or upstairs and downstairs, whatever. But regardless, always make an effort to put things back new done using them. But seriously, if you're sitting and enjoying a movie with friends or family, make sure to take any dishes to the kitchen when it's over, put away any blankets that you use. If you take these small moments of time to put things away immediately, it means that you won't have to do it later and clutter won't accumulate. I always find that once one thing's out of place, place it like it's like it calls for other things to join it, and that's when the clutter starts to build up. Make sure everything has a home. Designate a spot for each and every item in your house so that can always be put back. This will help you stay organized and prevent clutter from accumulating. And this is my favorite rule. I heard this from somewhere, but everything has a home and everything in its home, and I live by that. And I tell clients that anybody I come across, I make sure they understand that rule because it's fundamental. When I find client clutter in my house, I think to myself, did we just not put this away, or does it not have a home? If it doesn't have a home, then I consider two things. Do I want this enough to create a home for it? If the answer is yes, then I find a home. I label it if it's going into a bin or a basket, and make sure others in the house know where to find it. If I don't have room for it and it's not as important as other things we're storing, then maybe we need to get rid of it and give it away to someone else. You've likely heard about minimalism. And while I'm not a minimalist today, I hope to be down the road someday. I do find some of the fundamentals of minimalism important to follow. You know, if you look at how many knickknacks do you really need? How many jackets do I need? How many pairs of shoes do I want to keep track of? How many books do I need to store in the house? You name it. We all have those things we tend to collect and accumulate. The fundamentals of minimalism are that you only get keep the things that you really love and you really want you don't keep things out of guilt or because they have value if you truly don't want them. Again, not a minimalist, but I do take time to take a look around the house and look around the home and ask myself, are there things that I'm storing that I really don't need? So the key here is just to make sure you're questioning yourself and that you're storing things that you need and love and that you're not keeping things out of guilt or because they have value. You can give them to someone else and they'll find value in them. And it's no longer something you have to store in your house and is causing you clutter. Okay, we're halfway through the list. And if you're getting value out of this video, please hit the like button and subscribe. It really helps me with my channel and it helps get my video out in front of more people to help them as well. Thank you. So number six is to make sure you utilize storage solutions. Whether you repurpose items or invest in storage solutions such as baskets, bins, shelving, anything that you need to keep your belongings organized and easily accessible. Accessible. Once you're done decluttering a space, you need to make sure these storage solutions are in place to ensure it remains organized and doesn't get out of hand. And I have a perfect example in my own home where I had a linen closet. We had seven people in the house and it looked like this. I'll put it on the screen. And it was awful. I would just close the door and not even want to go in it. And I finally said, I've got to stop avoiding. It took me a weekend to go through everything, get rid of what we didn't need, and then organize it. And today it still looks like this final product because. Because I put the right storage solutions in place and labeled everything. Everything has a home and everything's now in its home so it doesn't get out of control. The key thing is you don't have to spend a lot of money on these organization solutions. You should always try to repurpose things, bins, baskets. Shop wisely. You can spend just dollars on different solutions. So I want to make sure that you don't take away. You have to spend a lot of money. You can repurpose boxes, anything that you have, use it, but don't feel like you have to spend a lot of money. The important thing is that you put in place. It doesn't matter what the price tag is. And I'm not knocking product from high end stores. I have a lot of that product in my own house weaved here and there. But I do spend most of my time shopping at stores like Target or other home stores looking for deals. Make sure and look for deals and don't feel like you can't organize things because you don't have a lot of money to spend. This one is similar to the one in out rule, but make sure you're asking yourself the right questions before you buy something. Just because it's on sale or it's on clearance, it doesn't mean you should buy it. Also, if somebody wants to gift you something, something, this one is so important. If somebody wants to gift you something and you really don't want it, remember you can politely say no, thank you. Don't let guilt get the better of you. And it's so hard. I know. But most of the time the giver understands and won't take any offense to it. Make sure that you're maintaining your belongings. Go through your belongings with your family or people that you live with and get rid of anything that no longer works. Don't let it just hang out and hang around. So many times we can keep things with the intent to fix them. Either fix them or get rid of them because you know what will happen. They'll pile up and all they do is create clutter. Keep an eye out for all those things that don't work, that are ripped, broken and you're really not going to get to them. Repair and give them away to somebody who will take the time to fix them and use them. Number nine is to create a daily cleaning habit. Spend a few minutes each day going through a set of a few things that you've decided for your house. Makes sense, but it'll help you ensure that you keep your house tidy. In our home we've established a routine that works for us over time. I like to clean the counters once a day and it helps make sure things nothing builds up. It also ensures that it's nice and clean. There's nothing like walking into a kitchen with a clean counter. I also like to do the same thing in the bathrooms. I have cute container that holds cleaning wipes. So this makes cleaning up literally just take 30 seconds to a minute to wipe things down. This is also ensures that the bathroom counters stay clean and things are put away. And don't even get me started about my daughter. Right now she's a teenager and her bathroom products are all over the place when she's getting ready for school but either she puts them away or I quickly put them away and clean off the counters. But it's these type of cleaning habits that really help make a difference in and ensure that your house stays clutter free and they only take a couple minutes, if that, to do so. Try to establish a set of little cleaning habits that work for you and your home. Make sure that you're always considering your surroundings and you're always looking around to see how things are working in your space. If mail seems to pile up, take a moment to designate a place for all of your incoming mail. If shoes are crowding the entryway, take the time to put a solution in place. So everyone's shoes have a home and when they come in the door. Same goes with jackets, et cetera. I have a video on the screen for you on how to find home for mail, shoes, jackets, et cetera. So be sure to take a look at that comment below and let me know what three things you plan to adopt from this video over the next month. I hope it helps and I'll see you next time. Bye.