Declutter Tips For Moms ... just what you need! If you’re a mom, you know how busy your life can get running after your child/children, keeping your house tidy, carrying a part-time-job (or full time), preparing varied yet delicious meals, and the list goes on and on. It’s amazing, isn’t it, how quickly your house can look like tornado went through it! You told yourself before your first child was born that your house would NEVER become one of “those houses” where you raised your eye-brows upon entering at the clutter and toys everywhere, but lately, you stand in your own door way and shutter at the mess before you! Read the declutter tips for moms below, and take heart... it’s not impossible to once again achieve that clutter-free sanctuary called home!
- Have a conversation with your partner, children, and whoever else calls your house home. Acknowledge that a cluttered home is rarely the result of only one person, and rarely will one person be able to fix the problem alone. If you take a few minutes to explain that what you want and that you could use their help, you can go a long way to getting to that point. Encouraging and persuading will get you much further than nagging and being accusing.
- Start with small, achievable goals for your family. Aim to clear one area and get yourself and your kids in the habit of ensuring it stays completely clutter free. This is your Clutter-Free Zone. (It can be a counter, your kitchen table, the parlor, or the three-foot perimeter around the couch in your den – whatever you and the kids decide.) Have your kids help you ensure it stays clutter-free by enlisting their help monitoring the “Clutter-Free Zone”, and ensuring that nothing can be placed there that’s not actually in use.
- Teach your kids where things belong. If you teach your kids where things go, and start teaching them the habit of putting them there, your house will begin to look much more organized. Declutter tips for Moms who are rather messy themselves… set an example and get into the habit yourself, and be very patient! Your kids (and you) may not learn the habit overnight, but the patience and effort will be WELL worth it!
- Hold a garage sale! Get your kids involved in planning a garage sale with the proceeds from their own items going into their own piggy-banks. Set aside some time to help them sort through their toys, clothes and other “belongings” to determine what they don’t use, have too many of, don’t like, or hasn’t been looked at in years.
- Work with your kids to create a “maybe” box. Your child may know exactly what can and can-not be trashed, sold, or donated, but there will also be items that your child isn’t to certain about, or that he/she can’t bear to get rid of just yet! So, create a “maybe” box for these items. Then store the box out of site for 6 months (put a note on your calendar), and when you do pull it out again, have your child see if there is in there that he/she really missed, and act accordingly.
- Implement the Pre-Dinner Pick-Up Plan (Also works with Pre-Bedtime, or Pre-Movie Watching, etc.) Before dinner is served each evening, assign different areas for you and the kids to pick up. For example, you could take a basket into the living room, pick up everything that doesn’t belong there and take the items to the proper rooms. Your kids can put the toys in the play room (and any that have drifted into the hall) back into their proper places. If you enforce this routine for a month (and yes, your part too), soon it will become habit! Your call of “dinner in 10 minutes” will soon mean “start cleaning up”!
- Build a Rewards System. Get yourself a sheet of small stickers, and for every day your child keeps his/her room organized, he/she gets a sticker. 7 consecutive stickers equals a prize, but so do 15 non-consecutive ones (so that occasional bad days are “forgiven” without whipping out the progress). Declutter tips for Moms whose own bedrooms and rooms are a disaster? 1) Create a reward system for yourself! You know what you like, and be strict enough with yourself to follow through! 2) Give yourself “Demerit Points” for times you fall off your de-clutter plan! 10 Demerit points means you can’t ___ (you fill in the blank.) 3) If you’re brave and have kids that won’t do this disrespectfully, have them be your “judges”.
- Get the family involved. Perhaps your kids don’t put away their toys “properly” because they have trouble reaching the proper shelf, they can’t remember where the particular toy is supposed to go, or because it just doesn’t make sense to them to put it there. (For example, a car-mat complete with a village and train tracks may not make sense to your son to be put in a box on a shelf in the closet when he’s not playing with it. Get your son’s advice on where it should be put (his own version of declutter tips for moms), because he will only keep up with what makes sense to him.
Children are a blessing, yes, but their mess is often aggravating and stress-inducing, especially when a neighbor drops by expectantly. We tend to feel embarrassed that our houses are full of clutter and wish there was a way to turn out cluttered homes into peaceful and orderly havens. The above clutter help for busy moms are hopefully 8 places you can start to get that back! You can do it!
