How to Have a Clutter Free Home Part 3:

Five Ways to Keep Clutter Away for Good

We learned what clutter is and we dug deep to uncover our emotional attachments to things. 

We learned the process to declutter every area in our home. 

Now it's time to to learn how to keep that clutter away for good. You know I won't let you down. Let's get into it.

1. Make cleaning routines habitual.

Establish specific daily cleaning routines that you will do every morning and evening.  You make also want to break your chores up into weekly routines where you will focus on one chore everyday.  Once you make it a habit, your daily routines should only take about 15 minutes. Your weekly chores might take 30-60 minutes. Tasks will become quick and easy once you get into the habit of doing them regularly.

It takes 21 days to form a new habit.  So, grab yourself a calendar and mark an X through each day that you keep up with your cleaning routines.  Make it your goal to mark 21 consecutive days.  Promise yourself a reward for all those X's. Once you get going, I promise you, you won't want to stop. Use the following guidelines to form new cleaning routines.  

 

Refer to this blog post for Daily and Weekly Chore guidelines

2. Don’t allow out of place items to sit.

Put things back where they belong as soon as you notice them out of place and be adamant that family members do the same. As soon as you allow out of place items to sit and fester it is a guarantee that more out of place items will find their way to the party. Clutter provides an invitation for more clutter. If you put that mail on the dining room table, within a day, everyone is going to be putting mail and papers they don’t know what to do with on the dining room table. Everything should have a place and there should be a place for everything.

3. Get family members involved.

Keeping a home neat and tidy is everyone's job.  If your family members are not on board with this, sit them down, have a meeting and explain your why. Get everyone invested. Make sure everyone walks away with a job and that they understand their assignment. Designate accountability partners and provide incentives to keep everyone motivated.  Promise to do something special as a family if everyone does their part each week and each month. No one wants to be the one who messes it up for everyone, and everyone will hold the one who is messing it up accountable, lol.

4. Stop buying junk.

This is probably the best thing you can do to keep your clutter problem from getting worse. Just stop buying more stuff.  When you're at the store and you find yourself eyeing some new thing, ask yourself, "do I need this shit?"  Think about your goals and your why and allow your higher consciousness to hold you accountable to it. 

I love Dollar Tree and Bed, Bath, Beyond as much as anyone. But, when I'm in there browsing around, considering some new "as seen on TV" item to bring home, I hear a voice in my head say, "that’s clutter, you don't need that, put it back!"  It works. I turn my nose up at said item disgustingly and move on, because I'll be damned if I undo all of my hard work.

5. Remember your why.

This is the most important thing.  When you get discouraged, remember your why.  When the job seems impossible, remember your why.  When you're too tired to do your evening ritual and you just want to go to bed, remember your why.  When you are too rushed in the morning to do your morning routine because you woke up late and you want to beat rush hour traffic, remember your why. Washing those dishes in the morning so you don't have to do it when you come home is a greater reward than stopping at your favorite coffee shop on your way to work. When you get home to a nice clean kitchen, you'll be able to cook yourself a good, healthy meal. Remember. Your. Why.

Next week... We declutter. You ready?