Holy Moly, we recently had to have a talk about the feeling of how overwhelmed I felt in the house.  Every time I walked in the house I felt “UGH!” instead of feeling light, welcome and loving energy, I felt an icky, ugh feeling.  When I would sit on the couch I would look around and think what the heck, this place has crap everywhere again! It’s time to do something once and for all.

I have noticed that if I take pictures of each room it is like the clutter jumps out at you, saying LOOK AT ME! For me, it was easier to start with a pile of kid’s stuff or paperwork. Today I picked paperwork to work on and enlisted the help of our kids.

I came up with a game for 21 days we will remove 21 items or more each day in one area of our home.  The family is enlisted in this job too, it may just me asking for backup or opinions but the intention is to declutter it all.  To get down to just the items that mean something to us, that we enjoy and use.  Not holding onto things we “have to” because someone gave it to us, or we feel obligated to keep.

Today I tackled the paperwork in our home. Man those papers and envelopes stack up fast.  I went to each room and collected all the papers lying around to make sure I had them all in our office area.  I opened up our filing cabinet and went through every file.  I made piles as I went through the files.  One pile was to shred, adult stuff and then kids papers.  I had a pile we can put in individual manila envelopes and put into a plastic bin such as bank statements, taxes, business stuff.  I gave the girls the stacks to put into the big envelopes and label the envelopes on the outside while I relabeled the filing cabinet files.

girls sorting during the cleanout. Way to much unnecessary paper to hold onto.

 

filing cabinet sorted, relabeled and condensed after the paper purge.

We reorganized the files and grouped them into sections to make it easier and save time while looking for something.  Each piece of paper that is important has a home in the filing cabinet.  I have a bill binder to keep those organized and keep track of, and other binders labeled on our shelves as well.

With the shredded papers, all the papers we did not need, discarded junk mail we had held onto, ads, magazines, and coupons I released 5 trash bags full of clutter.  Next, we hit the inbox towers we each have on top of the desk.  I’m beginning to think we only need one or two inboxes for the businesses because a lot of paper gets trapped in these things.

Although this wasn’t an area in our home that directly deals with the kids and their mess it is a start.  We just have to start to gain momentum, to give visual proof to our brain that we can get control of our clutter.  Our house can get out of control easily, especially when we have kids.  Clutter in our environment has so many effects on us with feelings of overwhelm.  If we as adults feel overwhelmed imagine how our kids feel in the same environment as well.  It’s time to purge, declutter and clean up the mess we have all created in our space we call home.

Start with me today, comment below with what you did today and how it made you feel.

Much love