Carrie Bartkowiak v. 5.0

This month’s Ask The Organizer column at 5MinutesForMom by my decluttering inspiration angel Jessica Duquette is fantastic, I suggest you all go read it.  As you might know, I’ve been on a mission to declutter my entire house for two months now (and still counting), and that’s what her column -and this post-is about.

It’s been a long, hard road and it’s nowhere near being done.  To be honest, at times you can’t even tell that anything *has* been done.  It’s going to be months before it’s finished, because I’m doing it myself.  I would love to be able to afford having Jessica and her team come help, but at the same time I’d be mortified to let her into the house, lol.

Anyhow, as I’ve been going along, I’ve learned a lot. I want to share some of these things with you, just in case it might help.

Create a sanctuary.
The first thing you should do when tackling an entire house is pick a room to be your “sanctuary”. It should be something you can declutter, clean, and organize quickly to get yourself revved up, but also so that you can go in there whenever the reality of the whole-house tackle is getting you down.  This might be your bedroom (which really *should* be your sanctuary by the time you’re finished), or even the smallest room in the house. For me, it was the bathroom.  Our bedroom was a major project that I wasn’t ready for yet, but the bathroom and the closets in the hall I could do quickly. In just a day I had those done, and then whenever the rest of the project started weighing on me, I could go into the bathroom, close the door, and just relax and appreciate all of its uncluttered-ness.  Doing that would boost me up and remind me of how great it’s going to feel when everything is done.

Focus on “creating space”, not “decluttering things”.
Here’s where I get a bit Law Of Attraction oriented on you.  I started my project with the aim of decluttering my house.  For the first two weeks I went like gangbusters. But the more I worked, the more I found to declutter! It was strange.  When I got to the point where you could really see that I’d made an incredible amount of progress, I suddenly got the urge to pull out all of the stuff we’d been storing in the upper level of my parents’ (huge) workshop and go through it, even though the house was nowhere near being finished! I spent a weekend at their house going through the stuff there, and ended up filling up a motorcycle trailer with stuff that we were either going to keep or just needed to go through more thoroughly. We brought the trailer home, unloaded it, and BAM - my house was a total wreck again.  Boxes everywhere, hard to find a place to sit, and a visually insurmountable, overwhelming task facing me every time I woke up.  I started to slide back into my “it’s all too much, why am I even bothering” mode; and that’s when it hit me: I was sliding back into my comfort zone and had attracted more stuff to declutter to myself to get there.

Because I was focusing on decluttering, rather than creating space, I naturally and unconciously found more things to declutter. Folks who’ve watched The Secret will know what I mean when I say that the Universe found a way to put more clutter into my path - because that’s what I was focusing on and that’s what I wanted to do - declutter!  It was also more comfortable for me to stay in my misery, surrounded by my stuff (and as Jessica will tell you, it’s not about your stuff, your “stuff” is actually a visual representation of deeper issues), than it was to step into a different world where I was in control, rather than my stuff being in control of me.

Once I realized that (and it took about two weeks of having all of this extra stuff piled around for me to have this realization), I was able to face those extra piles with determination and change my focus to CREATING SPACE.  The extra boxes from storage still aren’t completely done, but they’re getting there.

Also, once you change your focus to “creating space”, you’ll start to recognize and appreciate more the space you’ve already made. It won’t be “god, I’ve still got SO much to do,” but instead will be “man, look at how far I’ve come!”

So be careful about what you focus on - trust me, you don’t want more clutter coming your way!  (If you get a sudden urge to bring everything down from the attic, up from the basement, in from the shed, or bring home all the stuff from the storage unit to go through -and it’s a true, overwhelming URGE to do it NOW, rather than waiting for the time you planned to tackle that part of the project- then ask yourself if you’re really focusing on clutter or space. My bet is, you’re focusing on clutter and finding a way to re-clutter the space you’ve already cleaned out so that you can get back into your own comfort zone.

Try to do one room, or one “group” of rooms at a time.
Trying to do the entire house at once made me feel like a chicken with its head cut off. I’d clear some space in my office, start working on the library, and the stuff coming out of the library would fill up my office again. Working in the library filled up the utility room more, too. Moving into the utility room made me push things back into the library so I could have room to sort… and it was a vicious circle.
Work on one room at a time (you’ll probably want to pick the room you’re in the most, like your kitchen, dining, or living room to start with after you’ve created your sanctuary), and once that room is completely done, move on.  If you’re like me and have stuff scattered all over the house that goes in other rooms, you might find this to be near-impossible. In that case, create groupings of rooms - like all of the bedrooms are one group, the living/dining/kitchen is another group, etc.  Make a space in each group for things that are inbound from other rooms. Warning: this space might get emptied out and re-filled many times before you’re done! But that’s okay - that’s what it’s there for. It’s a temporary holding station, so that inbound stuff doesn’t get just thrown willy-nilly wherever it will fit and you’ll find yourself starting all over again in that room/group.

Remember that you didn’t do this alone, it took a village.
(Okay, so this might not hold true if you’re single, but I figure I’m mostly talking to other Moms here, lol.)
Once a room is clean, make a promise to yourself -and keep it!- that nothing else will come into the room unless there is already a place for it.  You’ll need to make this clear to your family too, as they’ll be in the habit of saying “oh, this is Mom’s, I’ll just toss it onto the <whatever> in her office/bedroom”. 

It took a village -your family- for the house to get this way.  The whole family will need to be re-trained, not just you.  As you clear some space, be sure to show it off to everyone. When you do, look everyone squarely in the eye and let them know, bar-none, that this is not an open spot to pile anything that anyone doesn’t have the time or inclination to put away properly.  Explain the system that you’ve worked out for the space/room, and run everyone through it at least once.

What’s even better is if you can garner some help from your “village”, so that they get in on the excitement and pride of making it look better. When they actually put some effort into it themselves, they’re less willing to mess it up again.

I’m sure I’ll learn more as I go along. It’s been a long, LONG process so far but it’s working. The boys were fighting me tooth and nail, but now they’re finally starting to come around. (I said starting, not are happily and willingly joining in, lol.)  Tonight I knew I was even rubbing off on the hubby when I frowned at his pile of stuff on the table (lunch bag, laptop, medicine pouch, papers, and his jacket hanging over the kitchen chair) and said “This isn’t working. You need some sort of a landing strip to put all of this stuff”… and he actually agreed with me!  Okay, after he agreed he started to defend himself and argue that he *had* been putting the stuff away before his office got so stuffed full of his tools (which I firmly refute he had NOT been doing, and the boys will attest to that since they often were the ones who ended up having to clean his junk off of the table before dinner), but at least for a moment there, he agreed with me. It was a sliver of victory, and you bet I’ll take it!

What do you think? I wanna know! Please leave a comment :)
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