A Tisket a Tasket… what’s in my basket…

I have got so behind … since I started blogging…I can’t think why, maybe its all those post-midnight hours lurking the blogosphere. Decluttering has come down to this wordle:

And I need it to be more like this:

Otherwise decluttering round the house is at an all time low… this tends to happen as a we get to the end of a school term, not to mention the end of the school year – we are one or two weeks away from our spring break and ten weeks from the end of our school year. It is one thing to be organized and I would define organized as: able to access an item within a moment…

I find organizing easy to maintain… if you take something out put it back, everything has a place – and I am trying to instill if it doesn’t have a place it must go… We do a quick tidy up before every meal… food is a great motivator and don’t forget their are se7en hungry hoods ready and eager (well not always eager – but they do get hungry!). Projects have to be put back before the next one starts… and there has never been another option, no hood knows any other lifestyle!

However organized doesn’t mean a decluttered smoothly running home machine. In fact, I thought everything was under control until I did a recent post on: The Dresser, and I was appalled to discover we have a lot to lose! In order to be decluttered, except as the entropy and weariness of a school year draws to a close, I am astonishingly disciplined – I don’t know how it happened but it did. All those years of my mother saying “tidy your room,” finally paid off – when I left home – oops!.

So this is how I try and remain decluttered…

  • Every week I go through one Hood’s clothes. So every two months or so I go through everyone’s clothes, whip out what isn’t being worn or anything beyond repair. Refold and return to drawers – that’s the last I see of their clothes – laundry has moved onto the land of chores… which is another whole can of worms – or should I say topic.
  • And everyday I whip through a drawer round the house or a shelf whatever. It really only take a few minutes . Even if it is as small as the keys spot, which seems to accumulate batteries and buttons, on a weekly basis. I think there may be some confusion around here: keys… KEYS! This keeps everything rotating and clutter cannot accumulate. What happens as our school term continues in order to tidy up quickly things get jammed into available spots… and so everything slumps…
  • During breaks from school I usually go through each hoods treasures… this can take a while and nearly kills me – as I want to turf each piece of old bark and broken screw and oh, the list is endless, the junk is mountainous and it takes a lot of breath holding to maintain a respectful distance. I have conquered this by saying they have to sift their stuff weekly and if they manage that I will help them finish the job. Help is usually standing behind them with a garbage bag or a to donate bag… Help them I will.

I usually do a massive declutter during our school holidays, but I know I would rather spend my holidays on higher callings, blogging for instance. So rather than spending our spring break on decluttering I have decided to do a more than my usual little bit everyday – and seriously get rid of stuff.

So I am making a list… talk about accountability… and I am getting rid of something everyday of this month – big or small – every little bit must help…it has to make a difference. Not to mention that it has to go, go , go… it is not enough to get it to the front door – whatever it is, it has to walk out the door and out of the gate to reach its next port of call, so to speak. Luckily we live in a part of the world where whatever I have no need of there is somebody really nearby that desperately needs it.

So watch out for the tisket/tasket post this weekend to see what I discarded in the first week of September.

2 Replies to “A Tisket a Tasket… what’s in my basket…”

  1. Hi Mommy Hood,
    FABULOUS article – so totally inspiring. They were talking about this very thing on Focus on the Family on Friday morning with James Dobson. Please could you write some useful hints for storage and storing toys and tidying and allocating space for children in bedrooms when you have a chance.
    Have been TOTALLY loving the crafts too. Thank you.
    Tammy

  2. Hi there, I am so glad you are enjoying the blog… I must say I am loving writing it. Hopefully some accountability will keep me focused on decluttering!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *