Clutter in our lives causes increased stress, wastes time and costs money. Just starting with one of these actions can help you keep clutter from taking over your life. 1. When you leave a room, take one item with you. Going to the kitchen to get a drink…drop the magazine you were paging through into your office, or the recycling bin. Going up stairs to bed…put your sweater in the laundry or back in the closet. Picking up just one item, clears the clutter in no time. Make it a habit and make sure everyone in your household does the same, and your weekends once again will be yours, not spent cleaning up the house. 2. Put it away right away. When you put something in a place where it doesn’t belong, you then waste time later, by having to put it into the correct space. For example, you come home from work and you put the mail and your brief case on the table. Your kids come home from school and put all their forms for you to sign on your brief case. Now it’s dinner time, and instead of putting the items away, you just push them to the side so you can eat. This is how clutter starts. Since clutter brings more clutter. It will now take even longer to tackle the pile because you have 5 other things piled on top of those first items. This isn’t an easy step after a long day, but you won’t want to do it later that night after you have already had a moment to relax. So do it once, and be done with it. 3. Open your mail over the recycling container. You know you’ll never change your dentist, and you aren’t in the market to sell your house, so drop those postcards or advertisements into the recycle bin right away. You haven’t clipped a coupon in years, so toss that coupon book too. Putting mail that you don’t need anywhere, other than the recycle bin (or the shredder) wastes time and causes clutter to pile up until you do decide to do something with it. To stop all this from reaching your mail in the first place, contact the specific company and ask them to remove your name from their mailing list, or opt-out of junk mail at any numerous companies on line. 4. 1-in-1-out. Whenever you bring a new item into your home, get rid of something else. Donate it, recycle it or give it to that friend that has always admired it, just find a new home for it so you can enjoy your new item. Be conscious of the amount of items that you are bringing into your home. This is a really important process to remember around the holidays or birthdays. 5. Put like with like. How many pairs of scissors, reading glass or wine openers do you own? Most people don’t know because they are probably spread all over the house, in the garage or even in the car. The problem arises when you don’t know where any of a particular item is, you then feel the need to replace it. This costs you money and wasted time in looking for, and then going out to buy the item. Wishing you an Uncluttered Life! Rhonda Burger is a Professional Organizer, and owner of Help Me Rhonda Unlimited. She is a Member of Preferred Organizers Association. Rhonda can be reached at 414-483-6385. Contact me now. ©Rhonda Burger 2016
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