Treasured Tidbits by Tina

8 Weeks To a Cleaner, More Organized Home – Getting Started

This is it!

The first step in your journey to a cleaner, more organized home!

You asked for it and you got it!

I promise we will be sharing specific tips and tricks for each area of your home but in order to work in each area efficiently a few basic actions need to occur. Rather than bore us with sharing the same info each week I have chosen to place the basics for starting each room here.

HOW TO BEGIN EVERY AREA

Stop,. Walk through and assess each week’s area(s) with a notebook and pen in hand. Ask yourself the following questions:

What is the first thing you see as you enter the room?

What catches your eye?

What makes you cringe?

What could you do to improve this? (Add storage, remove the dust build up, turn a table, etc…

2. Remove any and all VISIBLE unwanted or misplaced items.

I would recommend keeping a few boxes on hand for this. One each for the following has proven to be helpful to us.

A.) Belongs in another room

You may also wish to keep a laundry basket handy for laundry items you stumble across.

B.) Trash (I use a trash can)

C.) Donate/Give Away

D.) Belongs outside the home (recycling, borrowed, library books, etc…)

4.) Use our FREE area by area printable and make a reasonable estimate of how long each project will take you and which projects you should address first.

Remember, we are all different and will need to address different areas accordingly.

(Sally may only need to clean her rooms while I need to pick up, organize, straighten and clean mine.) If a project does not apply to you (no carpet to clean, light fixture to dust, etc… simply remove it from your list).

5.) Now take your to do list and that week’s schedule and map out what you can truly expect to accomplish each day.

It is very important to be realistic about this. You do not want to give up early because you tried to achieve the entire list in one day.

If you work full time or have multiple appointments you may only be able to accomplishment a 5 minute task each day of the week but can devote 3 full hours to addressing the room on your day off. If you are a stay at home mom and can do 4/10 minute sessions a day then create your schedule to do so.

The main thing is to do what works for you!

This is not a race.

There is no reward for who finishes first or has the cleanest home.

It simply a guideline and hopefully “safe place” to encourage you to take the steps to make your house the home you want it to be one step at a time.

This series will involve some very in-depth cleaning that many of us do not do on a weekly basis as well as tasks that you may accomplish daily.

Please feel free to join our facebook group at Clutter Overcomers where we offer ideas, support and encouragement. We will share pictures of our daily tasks, before, after and in the during the 8 week process.

I will also be sharing my journey each Sunday evening as I wrap up the previous week’s task list in my own home.

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