Spring Cleaning Quick Wins

Hey, it’s Leigh Ann Betts here. Welcome to What’s Up Wednesday. I’m the creator of the Declutter Your Life 30 day Challenge. And today what’s up is spring. It’s spring this week. Often when we think of spring, two other words come up. And that’s spring cleaning.

Today what I want to do is give you a couple of quick wins for, actually more than a couple, that you can put in your belt and have some successes in your life as we get into the activities of spring and summer, and free up some time so we can get out and about.

Today what I want to talk about is, let’s start out with lazy clutter. Lazy clutter is the stuff that just seems to land on the kitchen countertop, on the table, in the office. It’s the stuff like sunglasses, car keys, maybe it’s the mail that doesn’t quite make it into the office, or you haven’t been able to open the envelopes yet.

Lazy clutter is the one that often gets under our skin and stresses us out, because we walk in the house from a full day at work or maybe we’ve been doing a bunch of errands and we come in to relax and there’s all this stuff everywhere. For women, especially, it just gets under our skin. It’s like okay, there’s more for me to do and we don’t actually feel calm until we get rid of it. Or we live with it and it’s this underlying level of anxiety that’s going on in our life.

Lazy clutter, there’s two main reasons why lazy clutter happens. The first one is, people put it down and they don’t put it away. The second one is, there isn’t an official home for whatever that item is, like keys or sunglasses for instance.

There are two mantras you are going to want to establish in your home. The first one is don’t put it down, put it away mantra. The second one is, a place for everything, and everything in its place. The key is, go around, get rid of your lazy clutter. Find out what’s there, determine a home for it and let everyone know where that home is. It will work and you can get rid of some of that lazy clutter that is on your countertops.

The second quick win for you is to look at your unfinished business clutter. This is like those incomplete projects you have. Maybe you’ve got some old crafts that you’ve never finished. That knitting project that’s been going on for five, ten years. I’m laughing because I’ve totally been there. Trying to do a tool for several years and finally I realized it’s just never going to happen.

The thing about unfinished business clutter is, it is clutter and it weighs on us. Do one of two things. If you want to finish the project, set a date to finish the project. Then, make it happen. And if it isn’t finished by that date, it’s out of there. Otherwise, just get rid of it. Simplify your life and you won’t have that weighing on you like I never get to do my knitting. That type of thing.

Then, the other clutter is, I might need it someday, clutter. This is very prevalent in the female closet. We may have a range of sizes of our clothing, because you just never know, I might gain a few pounds, or maybe I’ll fit into those jeans that I have from when I was 30, before kids. Here’s the thing. Just get rid of it all, and be the size that you are now. I know that sounds like earth shattering, but it is so freeing to get rid of the bigger sizes and the lower sizes. Just stick with the stuff, the size that you are. Really, there’s an 80/20 rule. We only wear 20% of what’s in our closet, which is really kind of crazy.

The other thing with the I might need it someday clutter is like old hobbies. Maybe when you were younger you were a marathon runner. Or maybe a golfer. I know for me, when I lived in the city I was on the lady’s league. And I golfed with work and I brought my clubs when I moved out to the mountains and I don’t golf out here. So I got rid of my clubs. Things like that, that are I might need it someday, which really means never, get rid of it. The other thing is the 20/20 rule in decluttering. It’s like if you can replace it in 20 minutes for under $20, get rid of it.

Okay, on to the next one. Paper clutter. This is a big one. And I know with computers, we actually have more paper than we did before. Paper can really pile up and stress us out. I have a simple technique you can do for paper. There’s basically three piles. So, get a post-it note and write these three things. The first one is recycle or shred. That’s the first pile. The second pile is file. The third pile is action.

Anything you have to take action on, like paying a bill. Maybe its authorization for your kid to go on a field trip, whatever that is, put that in the action pile? Just go through and sort into three piles. It’s just like clockwork. It’s super easy. Once you are done with that, take the recycle and shred and get rid of it, right? Get it out of there.

Then, next take the file pile and file everything away. And then, start auctioning the items in your action pile. And I use this all the time. It is a super quick way of getting through lots of piles of paper.

After you’ve done all of these quick wins, you’ll want to start your decluttering projects for spring cleaning.  I recommend you always start small. So that you can get that quick win under your belt. You can feel confident. You can be satisfied. If you are taking on the garage or the basement, first thing that’s kind of a big project. So something like your purse, the junk drawer that everybody has, what’s the other one that everybody has? Oh, a jewelry box, something like that, start out with that. It will make you feel good and satisfied and then, you’ll be ready to take on the front closet or some of the drawers in the kitchen.

And then, the last thing that I want to share is the cardinal decluttering rule with you. And I learned this the hard way. And that is never get rid of anyone else’s stuff. Period. Because somebody’s garbage is another person’s treasures. And you never really know the sentimental value something is to someone else. And what I do have a lot of women ask me is, oh my husband or boyfriend, they have so much stuff and it drives me crazy. The thing is, you can’t deal with their stuff. Only they can. But when you start doing the process of decluttering your life, they can notice. And it might take a year before they decide to get rid of some of their books or some of their clothes. But it will eventually happen. So you just do your thing and eventually they will come around to do their thing.

Hey, Rochelle, thanks for joining today. I hope you are doing well.

The other thing is, hey if you want more calm and less busy, go to LeighAnnBetts.com and download my ten energy boosts so you can bring that into spring.

Roll up your sleeves, I got mine rolled up. In fact I think I’m going to take on my jewelry box today, because it’s quite a mess. And get your decluttering groove on and start small. Use some of these tips that I gave you about the lazy clutter, the unfinished business clutter, the I might need it someday clutter and the paper clutter, and start there. Then, you are going to feel so good to start taking on those bigger projects.

Because it’s just the beginning of spring, I think I’m going to continue with What’s Up Wednesday with more decluttering tips for all of you. Yeah, until next week, have a great week! Thank you!

Photo by Toa Heftiba