Needless to say, having four children doesn't help matters much when they are bringing home all kinds of cute artwork, quizzes, and lovely school papers. Plus, having children puts me in a perpetual time crunch! I had to find a strategy that would help me work through this problem! Especially since I don't want my children to pick up this problem and think it's okay to live like this.
Here are some clutter management tips that I've found to work for me:
Don't bring unnecessary clutter inside the house. How I've employed this strategy is that I open my mail next to my recycle bin. Any junk mail and flyers go directly into the recycle bin, it doesn't make it into the house.
Today, I actually took about 20-30 minutes of the morning- after dropping off the kids and grabbing a huge cup of coffee, to declutter my kitchen counter. This space has become an easy catch-all for paper clutter items. It's right by the door as you come in- so it's quite an eye sore. I started by grabbing an empty plastic container to dump all the recycling, and organized all of the mail into piles- bills, bank statements, etc. Then I opened all the mail and recycled any envelopes and excess papers. I store my paper shredder close by this area, this makes it convenient to get rid of anything containing personal info.
The cardinal rule of organization is that 'everything must have a place.'Recipes go in the recipe box, bills, and important papers can be stored in a large filing system like an accordion style filing folder or a large binder. I even am starting a coupon area. Knowing everything has a designated area makes it a lot less stressful.
I'm always working on my clutter issues, but today is a step forward- it's sweet progress... And it feels good!
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