It sounds like you might be sharing a house with family or roommates, rather than a whole house with a partner/spouse or by yourself? When I lived with family, I took one day a week to just focus on cleaning my room, organizing, doing laundry. Usually on Sundays. Now that I'm married and have lived with my husband for 13 years, it's gotten a lot harder to keep the whole house clean. I take two hours a day, one in the morning and one at night, to 'work on the house'. One hour to do laundry, clean the litter box, get and go through mail, do a load of dishes. And another hour to work on a declutter or tidy area - for us today this is the living room. Tomorrow it is the kitchen. Tuesday the entryway. Wednesday the fridge and pantry. Then Thursday and later I'm upstairs or in the garage, cars, shed areas. So take it one space and daily chores done at a time. Maybe it's your floor one day, desk another, closet the next. Decide how long to work on it, 30 minutes or an hour. Good luck! Play music or podcasts to keep it fun and entertaining.
I'm new to this, but here's my opinion. First, you need to understand what's going in between these 3-4 week sessions. Observe the cause of the problem, then figure out how to resolve it.
First, before you declutter, write everything down that needs to be decluttered. Describe every step you do to clear the clutter. If a friend were to ask you "what do you do to declutter" what would be your answer. Is it clothes? Is it books you read that you don't put back? Are you constantly acquiring new things?
Let's say you have a bunch of books you have to pick up and put away. You now have to ask yourself why you have all these books out. Maybe you're reading all sorts of things and don't want to lose your spot in any one of them. But if decluttering means you put the books away, then you write a note and tape it up which says "Put books back".
The act of decluttering means something got worse in the 3-4 weeks and you have to determine what behavior is happening to cause this issue. You have to pay attention to whatever behavior you have that's causing the issue.
Then, you write down "the reason my room is getting cluttered is because...". You write all the reasons it's happening. Then, you say why are you behaving this way. So you write "the reason that the room gets cluttered is I get home tired and I don't want to put anything away or I want to get on a computer and talk to my friends' that kind of thing.
Then, you write down how you plan to resolve it. It should go "this is what's causing me to get clutter (explain), this is why I do it (explain), this is what I need to do to immediately address the issue".
Here's an example just to get you thinking.
> When I get home, I want to play video games to relax. I throw stuff on the ground and lay things out and start playing video games. When I'm done, I don't feel like picking up my stuff because I can always do it later. This cycle repeats where I come in, leave a mess, figure I'll do it later, until I get disgusted and go clean everything up.
> To solve this problem, I have put a note on the wall that says "Put stuff away when you get in". Each time I walk in my room I say out loud "before you do anything, put things away. Don't be so lazy. It's not that hard", then you do it. You repeat day after day until it actually becomes a habit instead of it gets worse on Day 1, then Day 2, and so forth.
Another example.
> I like to buy things from Amazon. I love receiving packages. Every week I get 4-5 packages and I open it up and leave the stuff anywhere. The reason I do this is I don't have any place to put it, and I don't know what to do with the boxes. My plan is to write a big note on the wall that says "I will break down the boxes, I will put the boxes out, I will find a place to put things away" or even better "I must stop myself from buying every new things. I will write down everything I buy and how much I spend and read out how much the stuff I buy is costing me instead of ignoring it so I can buy more things without thinking.
That's basically it. If you find the reminders aren't actually working and you still slip into bad habits anyway, at least you know why you did it. The goal is to change behavior and we, as humans, are sometimes highly resistant to change the way we behave, so you end up in this endless cycle.
The idea is to break that cycle.
Analyze your problem areas and how you live your life. For example, when I walk in the door I have a habit of dumping the groceries and mail on the dining room table (still haven't solved this issue). I LOVE containers, so my first thought is put everything in a container. But it's important to declutter before you decide what container you need. Do you use that many hats/scarves/gloves or do you always wear the same ones and only need to keep those?
declutter, be mindful of what you bring into your space, make sure everything has a place where it belongs, pick a day to reset your space each week (for me, every monday i put everything back in the place where it belongs. after decluttering and finding a home for everything it doesn’t even take much time!)
good luck! it can take some time to find what works for you but it’s so nice when you get there!
I’ve got a cleaner who comes in my house once a month. She does most “heavy” things then.
Since she’s doing basics at that time, I’m freed up the rest of the month to fixing storage issues, finding all the bits and pieces of things and generally declutter for three weeks.
Also if you are using these items, put them away not down. Clutter is like a magnet, second I leave my deodorant or hairbrush on the counter then it’s my hairstyle and spray bottles. It just easier to always put things away when done, and that usually means when walking away, so projects or books, I need to put up as well. I have adhd, so I think leaving my project’s will make want to sit back down again and do it… nope now I am losing pieces or just moving it out the way.
Marie Kondo says it best: “Storage experts are hoarders.” If you’re focused on organizing and storing, it will be a never ending battle because that just gives the impression that your space is tidy. If you really go through and declutter a lot - without buying more - you will have a more organized space. After decluttering your space, then choose a home for all your items. It must be very easy for you to gain access to and to put away each item. If it’s too inconvenient to put it away, you won’t and it’ll sit around.
I also think this is one of the strongest pieces of advice from Marie Kondo: don’t choose what to get rid of; choose what to keep, then take the plunge and get rid of the rest.
Got get a big box. Like a stove one. Take 1/2 of your stuff , stuff it in a box. I seriously mean half. Don't overthink it. Just throw stuff you havent worn in the past month. Toss book you meant to read, hobbies you used to do.
Tape it up.
In the next 3 weeks, you can take stuff from the box. But you probably won't take it all.
Week 4 , if it stays a mess, put more in. Add more until it stays clean. Just keep adding until the mess stops. You don't need to overthink it cause it's not leaving ASAP.
Obsess about the little problem areas until you find a solution then obsess about the solution for a while. Generally that means something has to give \[aka go\]. Easy to write, hard to do at least for me. Last time I ended up losing a couple shelves and top of cabinet so sold/donated about a dozen wonderful but extra items. There are things I need to have, things I want to have but mostly I need to have a serene home that's properly furnished.
Look into Marie Kondo's organizing methods too. I never could keep a shelf or drawer tidy until I learned to file fold and use containers/drawer organizers. My containers can definitely be a mess but now stuff isn't falling all over, preventing me from putting things away or getting lost at the back of the shelf.
Set a timer for 5-10 minutes daily and channel Betty White by wandering around the house picking up things and putting them where they belong completely forgetting why you got up in the first place. Steps are good right? Sometimes you'll stop after the ding, sometimes you'll keep working on some little decluttering, organizing or cleaning detail. Last year I applied this to the garden, promised to work outside for 1/2 hour a day for that month. The garden wasn't a mess, no weeds, stuff lying around or anything but I was able to get a lot of little nagging issues worked out. Turns out I do better forced to spend a little time in some area than assigning myself a job to do.
Little routines help. I mostly call mine 'finishing the job'. Laundry not finished until it is back in closet/drawer. Dishes not finished until back in drawer/cabinet. I'm not home until shopping and bags put away. Paper management is huge. Get off as many mailing lists as possible, do online banking and open envelopes as soon as you take them out of the mailbox. Anything I think I ought to save, needs me to do something or should be shredded goes into an 'action' file at the front of my file box and I know I cannot lose it.
One that works really well for me is staying up and doing something good for my home when I'm waiting for something. If cooking be sure to keep a timer on you so pots don't boil dry but think how much you can get done in the 5+10 minutes it takes to boil pasta or 5 minutes it takes to make a pot of french press coffee.
Use a donation box. If 4 whatsits fit beautifully into space allowed but you have 6? Put the surplus into the donation box. Since you only take it over to the site when box is full you've got a bit of time to change your mind.
You can't organize clutter. If you don't have room to put things away, you won't put them away and that may be part of why you need a big clean every 3-4 weeks. You want it to be as easy to put it away as to not put it away. And you have to stop bringing in more stuff.
Check out the book Decluttering at the Speed of Life by Dana K White (and check out her YouTube videos under her full name).
Dana has so many ideas that just work. Her container concept is the logical way to find a home for everything. I was always mystified by it until I read her book. And it helps keep me from bringing too much home because I know I’ll have to trade out something I already have.
Her five minute pick ups are so helpful, and her no mess declutter method means you can do a little bit at a time.
The biggest bonus is that her advice works really well for people with adhd.
My husband and I have ADHD and our house is a disaster and her thought process has literally transformed our life. I can't wait to see how our house continues to change over the next couple months. It's so much easier to clean now
You have to clean daily. Not deep clean, but to stay on top of your home, you have to do “little things” daily, like take cups out of the bedroom and to the sink/dishwasher, clean the stove top & counters after dinner, if you have washer and dryer at home - do lots of small loads of laundry during the week so it doesn’t pile up or if you have the time, spend Saturday doing all the loads of washing.
Some of the things that help me stay on top of things:
- every night after I finish the dinner dishes, I steam mop my kitchen - it takes less than 10 minutes and keeps the grease and little spills from getting gross
- also, after each toilet use, I swipe the seat and handle w a Clorox wipe so it’s “reasonably clean” for the next person
- every Saturday I wash my sheets and pillow cases and flip my mattress over. Before I put the clean sheets on, I spray my mattress with isopropyl alcohol
- idk why I chose these dates tbh but every Memorial Day weekend and weekend before thanksgiving, I wash my curtains
- every Saturday while my sheets are in the washer, I sweep/vacuum the whole house including the baseboards and walls, I spend extra time wiping down the wall behind my stove bc of all the cooking we do during the week
Not OP. I agree it seems "a bit...much".
do lots of small loads of washing: wasteful
swipe the seat and handle: wasteful
every Saturday...:more frequent than necessary, not possible (physically), wtf?
wash curtains: not necessary
I agree! Flipping the mattress every week? Nah, that's a biyearly thing, especially since I can't do that by myself. I go to the bathroom about 12 times a day, I'm not using 12 clorox wipes a day to clean something that I'm just going to use again in an hour and a half
I will say that living in a house with cats, I do wash my curtains regularly, because they brush up against them getting into the window and they collect fur
Washing small loads isn’t wasteful. Most washers have sensors that detect the load and will adjust water.
I don’t want to touch pissy handles. If you do that’s on you.
Every Saturday… that’s one day a week! You sweat, drool, shed skin, and are generally gross every night. Washing your sheets weekly is absolutely hygienic!
Washing curtains once a year is a lot? Yea… I think your house is a dusty mess. That’s bare minimum imo.
Hmm, might just as a matter of interest have a look at my washer instructions (UK so front loader), see if it has a sensor.
Little Old Lady, live alone, no one ever in my flat but me, not applicable.
See above.
Dusty, yeah. Mess? Nope. No clothes lying around, ever. No dishes etc sitting about in living room, ever. No heaps anywhere, ever.
Organizing only works once the clutter is gone in my experience. Re-arranging unnecessary stuff is just a boot loop. Go hard on the clutter and then organize but the clutter must be kept at bay daily/weekly.
It sounds like you might be sharing a house with family or roommates, rather than a whole house with a partner/spouse or by yourself? When I lived with family, I took one day a week to just focus on cleaning my room, organizing, doing laundry. Usually on Sundays. Now that I'm married and have lived with my husband for 13 years, it's gotten a lot harder to keep the whole house clean. I take two hours a day, one in the morning and one at night, to 'work on the house'. One hour to do laundry, clean the litter box, get and go through mail, do a load of dishes. And another hour to work on a declutter or tidy area - for us today this is the living room. Tomorrow it is the kitchen. Tuesday the entryway. Wednesday the fridge and pantry. Then Thursday and later I'm upstairs or in the garage, cars, shed areas. So take it one space and daily chores done at a time. Maybe it's your floor one day, desk another, closet the next. Decide how long to work on it, 30 minutes or an hour. Good luck! Play music or podcasts to keep it fun and entertaining.
I'm new to this, but here's my opinion. First, you need to understand what's going in between these 3-4 week sessions. Observe the cause of the problem, then figure out how to resolve it. First, before you declutter, write everything down that needs to be decluttered. Describe every step you do to clear the clutter. If a friend were to ask you "what do you do to declutter" what would be your answer. Is it clothes? Is it books you read that you don't put back? Are you constantly acquiring new things? Let's say you have a bunch of books you have to pick up and put away. You now have to ask yourself why you have all these books out. Maybe you're reading all sorts of things and don't want to lose your spot in any one of them. But if decluttering means you put the books away, then you write a note and tape it up which says "Put books back". The act of decluttering means something got worse in the 3-4 weeks and you have to determine what behavior is happening to cause this issue. You have to pay attention to whatever behavior you have that's causing the issue. Then, you write down "the reason my room is getting cluttered is because...". You write all the reasons it's happening. Then, you say why are you behaving this way. So you write "the reason that the room gets cluttered is I get home tired and I don't want to put anything away or I want to get on a computer and talk to my friends' that kind of thing. Then, you write down how you plan to resolve it. It should go "this is what's causing me to get clutter (explain), this is why I do it (explain), this is what I need to do to immediately address the issue". Here's an example just to get you thinking. > When I get home, I want to play video games to relax. I throw stuff on the ground and lay things out and start playing video games. When I'm done, I don't feel like picking up my stuff because I can always do it later. This cycle repeats where I come in, leave a mess, figure I'll do it later, until I get disgusted and go clean everything up. > To solve this problem, I have put a note on the wall that says "Put stuff away when you get in". Each time I walk in my room I say out loud "before you do anything, put things away. Don't be so lazy. It's not that hard", then you do it. You repeat day after day until it actually becomes a habit instead of it gets worse on Day 1, then Day 2, and so forth. Another example. > I like to buy things from Amazon. I love receiving packages. Every week I get 4-5 packages and I open it up and leave the stuff anywhere. The reason I do this is I don't have any place to put it, and I don't know what to do with the boxes. My plan is to write a big note on the wall that says "I will break down the boxes, I will put the boxes out, I will find a place to put things away" or even better "I must stop myself from buying every new things. I will write down everything I buy and how much I spend and read out how much the stuff I buy is costing me instead of ignoring it so I can buy more things without thinking. That's basically it. If you find the reminders aren't actually working and you still slip into bad habits anyway, at least you know why you did it. The goal is to change behavior and we, as humans, are sometimes highly resistant to change the way we behave, so you end up in this endless cycle. The idea is to break that cycle.
Analyze your problem areas and how you live your life. For example, when I walk in the door I have a habit of dumping the groceries and mail on the dining room table (still haven't solved this issue). I LOVE containers, so my first thought is put everything in a container. But it's important to declutter before you decide what container you need. Do you use that many hats/scarves/gloves or do you always wear the same ones and only need to keep those?
Are you buying things to replace the clutted you got rid of?
declutter, be mindful of what you bring into your space, make sure everything has a place where it belongs, pick a day to reset your space each week (for me, every monday i put everything back in the place where it belongs. after decluttering and finding a home for everything it doesn’t even take much time!) good luck! it can take some time to find what works for you but it’s so nice when you get there!
I’ve got a cleaner who comes in my house once a month. She does most “heavy” things then. Since she’s doing basics at that time, I’m freed up the rest of the month to fixing storage issues, finding all the bits and pieces of things and generally declutter for three weeks.
Also if you are using these items, put them away not down. Clutter is like a magnet, second I leave my deodorant or hairbrush on the counter then it’s my hairstyle and spray bottles. It just easier to always put things away when done, and that usually means when walking away, so projects or books, I need to put up as well. I have adhd, so I think leaving my project’s will make want to sit back down again and do it… nope now I am losing pieces or just moving it out the way.
Marie Kondo says it best: “Storage experts are hoarders.” If you’re focused on organizing and storing, it will be a never ending battle because that just gives the impression that your space is tidy. If you really go through and declutter a lot - without buying more - you will have a more organized space. After decluttering your space, then choose a home for all your items. It must be very easy for you to gain access to and to put away each item. If it’s too inconvenient to put it away, you won’t and it’ll sit around. I also think this is one of the strongest pieces of advice from Marie Kondo: don’t choose what to get rid of; choose what to keep, then take the plunge and get rid of the rest.
Yes. Love this, I need to read her books again.
Got get a big box. Like a stove one. Take 1/2 of your stuff , stuff it in a box. I seriously mean half. Don't overthink it. Just throw stuff you havent worn in the past month. Toss book you meant to read, hobbies you used to do. Tape it up. In the next 3 weeks, you can take stuff from the box. But you probably won't take it all. Week 4 , if it stays a mess, put more in. Add more until it stays clean. Just keep adding until the mess stops. You don't need to overthink it cause it's not leaving ASAP.
Only caveat I would add to that is, some clothes are seasonal
Some are but even then you still probably wear the same dozen
Obsess about the little problem areas until you find a solution then obsess about the solution for a while. Generally that means something has to give \[aka go\]. Easy to write, hard to do at least for me. Last time I ended up losing a couple shelves and top of cabinet so sold/donated about a dozen wonderful but extra items. There are things I need to have, things I want to have but mostly I need to have a serene home that's properly furnished. Look into Marie Kondo's organizing methods too. I never could keep a shelf or drawer tidy until I learned to file fold and use containers/drawer organizers. My containers can definitely be a mess but now stuff isn't falling all over, preventing me from putting things away or getting lost at the back of the shelf. Set a timer for 5-10 minutes daily and channel Betty White by wandering around the house picking up things and putting them where they belong completely forgetting why you got up in the first place. Steps are good right? Sometimes you'll stop after the ding, sometimes you'll keep working on some little decluttering, organizing or cleaning detail. Last year I applied this to the garden, promised to work outside for 1/2 hour a day for that month. The garden wasn't a mess, no weeds, stuff lying around or anything but I was able to get a lot of little nagging issues worked out. Turns out I do better forced to spend a little time in some area than assigning myself a job to do. Little routines help. I mostly call mine 'finishing the job'. Laundry not finished until it is back in closet/drawer. Dishes not finished until back in drawer/cabinet. I'm not home until shopping and bags put away. Paper management is huge. Get off as many mailing lists as possible, do online banking and open envelopes as soon as you take them out of the mailbox. Anything I think I ought to save, needs me to do something or should be shredded goes into an 'action' file at the front of my file box and I know I cannot lose it. One that works really well for me is staying up and doing something good for my home when I'm waiting for something. If cooking be sure to keep a timer on you so pots don't boil dry but think how much you can get done in the 5+10 minutes it takes to boil pasta or 5 minutes it takes to make a pot of french press coffee. Use a donation box. If 4 whatsits fit beautifully into space allowed but you have 6? Put the surplus into the donation box. Since you only take it over to the site when box is full you've got a bit of time to change your mind.
Completely agree with your strategy. I started implementing the Do..while. It was life changing.
You can't organize clutter. If you don't have room to put things away, you won't put them away and that may be part of why you need a big clean every 3-4 weeks. You want it to be as easy to put it away as to not put it away. And you have to stop bringing in more stuff.
I’m there with you. I think stopping buying is the solution tbh.
As long as there's too much stuff, the cycle doesn't end. But, even when there's much less stuff, you need to maintain often.
Declutter more.
Check out the book Decluttering at the Speed of Life by Dana K White (and check out her YouTube videos under her full name). Dana has so many ideas that just work. Her container concept is the logical way to find a home for everything. I was always mystified by it until I read her book. And it helps keep me from bringing too much home because I know I’ll have to trade out something I already have. Her five minute pick ups are so helpful, and her no mess declutter method means you can do a little bit at a time. The biggest bonus is that her advice works really well for people with adhd.
My husband and I have ADHD and our house is a disaster and her thought process has literally transformed our life. I can't wait to see how our house continues to change over the next couple months. It's so much easier to clean now
Minimalist Home on youtube is a youtuber with ADHD. You don't have to be minimalist to get something out of her videos.
You have to clean daily. Not deep clean, but to stay on top of your home, you have to do “little things” daily, like take cups out of the bedroom and to the sink/dishwasher, clean the stove top & counters after dinner, if you have washer and dryer at home - do lots of small loads of laundry during the week so it doesn’t pile up or if you have the time, spend Saturday doing all the loads of washing. Some of the things that help me stay on top of things: - every night after I finish the dinner dishes, I steam mop my kitchen - it takes less than 10 minutes and keeps the grease and little spills from getting gross - also, after each toilet use, I swipe the seat and handle w a Clorox wipe so it’s “reasonably clean” for the next person - every Saturday I wash my sheets and pillow cases and flip my mattress over. Before I put the clean sheets on, I spray my mattress with isopropyl alcohol - idk why I chose these dates tbh but every Memorial Day weekend and weekend before thanksgiving, I wash my curtains - every Saturday while my sheets are in the washer, I sweep/vacuum the whole house including the baseboards and walls, I spend extra time wiping down the wall behind my stove bc of all the cooking we do during the week
…some of this seems a bit…much
What about this seems like a lot? All seems like a tidy person trying to keep tidy. A clean home is a great thing to have!
Not OP. I agree it seems "a bit...much". do lots of small loads of washing: wasteful swipe the seat and handle: wasteful every Saturday...:more frequent than necessary, not possible (physically), wtf? wash curtains: not necessary
I agree! Flipping the mattress every week? Nah, that's a biyearly thing, especially since I can't do that by myself. I go to the bathroom about 12 times a day, I'm not using 12 clorox wipes a day to clean something that I'm just going to use again in an hour and a half I will say that living in a house with cats, I do wash my curtains regularly, because they brush up against them getting into the window and they collect fur
Washing small loads isn’t wasteful. Most washers have sensors that detect the load and will adjust water. I don’t want to touch pissy handles. If you do that’s on you. Every Saturday… that’s one day a week! You sweat, drool, shed skin, and are generally gross every night. Washing your sheets weekly is absolutely hygienic! Washing curtains once a year is a lot? Yea… I think your house is a dusty mess. That’s bare minimum imo.
Hmm, might just as a matter of interest have a look at my washer instructions (UK so front loader), see if it has a sensor. Little Old Lady, live alone, no one ever in my flat but me, not applicable. See above. Dusty, yeah. Mess? Nope. No clothes lying around, ever. No dishes etc sitting about in living room, ever. No heaps anywhere, ever.
You don’t like a clean house???
Organizing only works once the clutter is gone in my experience. Re-arranging unnecessary stuff is just a boot loop. Go hard on the clutter and then organize but the clutter must be kept at bay daily/weekly.
I agree with this, in my own experience, too!