by kathilipp | May 3, 2017 | Clutter Free |
Day three of the Spring Fling, and it’s time to get serious … Let’s clear out the bathroom!
I’m not so worried about your sentimental attachments in the bathroom. (“But I can’t throw away that bottle of Axe Body Wash! I have to keep it — it was the last time my son smelled good.”)
But if you are anything like me, your bathroom can easily get filled with “just in case” items.
I am a worst-case-scenario kinda girl.
“What if we run out of money and I can never buy shampoo again. I don’t want to regret throwing out that six-year-old bottle of Head and Shoulders my cousin left here.”
What if I lose my job and I can’t buy lipstick again. Even though this color makes me look like an extra on the Walking Dead, it’s better than nothing, right? I should hold on to it.”
I get it. I’m a sick, sick woman.
Those things in the picture? Those were all from my kids’ bathroom.
No kid has lived here in over a year. But I kept it all — just in case.
Did I mention that I’m a sick, sick woman?
I bet you may have had some of these thoughts as well. Otherwise, why would you have six containers of foundation and only use one?
It Gets Better
One of the best things you can do to reduce clutter in your bathroom is become brand loyal. If you are a product junkie, always trying out new lipsticks, hairsprays, etc., it’s easy to keep six different kinds of mascara around because you’re never quite sure which one is the best. Find a product that works for you, and when you start to run out, buy another one. But stop buying products you already have.
Instructions:
– Set up your three boxes/totes and two bags.
– Start with one drawer or one shelf.
– Do NOT pull everything in your bathroom to sort it out. Take it one drawer, shelf, or basket at a time.
Bonus:
Want to stay Clutter Free in your bathroom? Commit to using up what you have. Only buy a new bottle of shampoo once you’ve used up the rest of the shampoo you have on hand.
You say, “But I would never use that old bottle of Head and Shoulders!”
Then throw it out. Only keep what you will actually use. This goes for makeup as well. When you run out, you can buy a new bottle, tube, or jar guilt free. Not only will this save you space, it will also save you money.
Share Your Fling
After you fling, either tell us about it or share a picture in the comments. Remember, each day (at the end of the Fling) there will be one winner, randomly drawn from the comments, who will receive a copy of The Cure for the Perfect Life from Kathi Lipp and Cheri Gregory. So share below and tell us about your fling.
by kathilipp | May 1, 2017 | Clutter Free, Spring Fling |
It is day one of the Spring Fling and we are going to start easy … in the kitchen. If you declutter the kitchen, it will make a big difference in how you cook and enjoy family time together.
Time to declutter the kitchen
The kitchen doesn’t seem to hold as much sentimental attachment as some of the other rooms in our homes, so let’s get the 20 items out of there. I would encourage you to really look at your stuff. Do you have six cookie sheets? Unless you are planning to take the place of Mrs. Fields, that probably is overkill. Could you donate a couple so that someone who is baking their cookies off of aluminum foil has a safe way to make cookies for their kids? One thing I realized as I was getting rid of my 20 things in the kitchen? It was hard! Not because I was attached to things, but because I’ve been decluttering so much over the years that I really do have my essentials only in the kitchen. That is Clutter Free progress, baby!
What to do in the kitchen
Instructions:
1. Set up your three boxes/totes and two bags.
2. Start with one drawer or one shelf. 3. Do NOT pull everything in your kitchen out and sort through it. That’s how your kids manage their toys, and how does THAT work for you?
Bonus: You know those days when you feel extra motivated? Yes, they may only come around once a year, but today could be that day! If so, here are some extra things you could do that will bring you more peace in your kitchen:
- Fling 20 things in your fridge.
- Fling 20 things in your freezer.
- Fling 20 things in your pantry.
- Fling 20 ketchup/taco sauce/soy sauce packages.
- Fling 20 take out menus in your junk drawer.
by Guest Blogger | Apr 5, 2017 | Clutter Free, Guest Blog |
Taming the paper piles
Paper, paper everywhere! Do you have more paper piles in the form of mail, bills, and notes than you know what to do with? Amy has a simple system to help you tame the paper monster.
Today Amy shows you her notebook system she’s used for several years to help tame the paper piles. It was especially helpful when her kids were small, but even now she uses it to organize papers and keep everything she needs at her fingertips.
One Small Win: Make a family notebook to corral your papers.
Amy Carroll is a speaker, writer, and International Initiatives Coordinator with Proverbs 31 Ministries. She’s the author of Breaking Up with Perfect as well as the director and coach of Next Step Speaker Services. Amy and her husband live in lovely Holly Springs, NC with a bossy miniature dachshund. You can find her on any given day texting her two sons at college, typing at her computer, reading a book, or trying to figure out one more alternative to cooking dinner.
Share life with Amy at www.amycarroll.org
by kathilipp | Jan 28, 2015 | Clutter Free, Guest Blog |
When people have asked the question: “What is one thing you wish you could change about yourself?”, my first thought, after a slightly faster metabolism, is being organized. When I drive through a neighborhood and see someone’s garage door open with bikes hung from rafter hooks, tools lined up on hangers, and assorted bins of sporting equipment, I have an urge to stop and ask if I could take a selfie in front of it…just to fanaticize about what my world would look like if a magic cleaning fairy waved her magic squeegee in my direction.
Organized people don’t use saran wrap on their Tupperware, only to find a stack of lids in some random craft box three moves later…after the said Tupperware has been used as a pet dish and eventually tossed.
One time, I bought a huge three-ring “everything you could ever need to know about being organized” binder. It was obviously written by someone who made Martha, from the Bible, look like a total slacker. The book was full of master copies addressing everything from running a B & B out of your bonus room to keeping track of your child’s fluoride treatments, and the care and nurture of beekeeping. The big selling point was that it came with “a money back guarantee”! If the book didn’t organize my life within a year, I could return it for a full refund or a voucher for home school craft supplies and a pound of fair trade coffee beans.
With hope and enthusiasm, I took out all the relevant pages. I knew once I got everything copied and began the task of filling all the sheets out I would be able to keep track of EVERYTHING! The one thing I hadn’t planed on was having to keep track of all the papers that were now no longer confined to a binder. I lost them. Gone. At the end of the year, not only was I still disorganized, I couldn’t send my half empty book in for a refund. Something needed to change. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be organized; I just was too busy to take the time I needed to really de-clutter and clean beyond the surface. After all, I am a people person who teeters on the edge of being spontaneous. Seriously, we are talking about me. A woman who lost one of her tap shoes and kept the other one for about four years just in case. Just in case what? I run into a one legged tapper who happens to be a size 9?
This year, I have been reading “Clutter Free” and really understanding that clutter isn’t just something that happens in your house, closets, and under the bed. Clutter can become personal and can cost much more than another filing system. The other day while doing a de-cluttering challenge, I came across a box of random things that had been on the desk, then the table, and finally followed the clutter migratory flight pattern to the far corner of my sewing area. Magazines full of tantalizing recipes, old junk mail, craft supplies, and a small brown paper bag filled the repurposed apple box. I opened the bag and out slipped a simple embossed card. My heart sank. It was a card I had purchased and intended to send to a friend who recently lost her spouse. My clutter and disorganization had spilled over beyond myself. With the card in my hand, I decided that what I have it isn’t about freeing up space in your drawers, but in your life and your heart.
My word for 2015 is BALANCE. It is something I will be talking about for the next twelve months. For now, I am taking it one closet and cupboard at a time and cleaning out the things that do not matter to make room for the things that do. ~ Marci
You can find out more about Marci at her website, and you can also discover her two books, The Adventures of Pearley Monroe and Empty Nest:Strategies To Help Your Kids Take Flight!
Are you ready to be Clutter Free? Start the 21-Day Clutter Free challenge! Sign up now!
by kathilipp | Jan 22, 2015 | Clutter Free, Guest Blog |
Clutter Free and Me
You know Linus and his blanket from the Charlie Brown cartoons, right? Well, there’s Sharon and her clutter, okay? As a little girl I was challenged with all my dolls and accessories. I shared a room with my older sister who did not do clutter. Every Saturday was clean your room day. What an ordeal for me! It continued on into college. Spaces were getting smaller and I was collecting more “things”. My dad was amazed at my ability to pack it all into the trunk to go home each spring. As I married and had children it became like a snowball rolling down the hill increasing in size and multiplying.
I recall a friend visiting for a playgroup, who commented on how messy our dressers were. She never returned. I felt shame realizing not everyone lived like I did. There were neat people. How could I become one?
Over thirty-five years have gone by since that day. The ebb and flow of clutter remains… on my mind constantly, always like a foreboding storm. My friend, Kathi Lipp has written a book for people like me. She understands that shame, that forever overwhelming feeling, and the energy-zapping demon of clutter.
“The problem is that clutter can become so overwhelming that to try and attack even a little of it can feel defeating. So instead, you give up and live in the piles.
Clutter never lets you settle on one thing. There is too much distraction, too much stop and start; too much ‘I’ll get to it when I can.’
It shames us. It steals our joy. It makes us exhausted. It brings up bad memories. It keeps you guilty…
Clutter keeps talking to us, weighing us down, and keeps us from living the life we were designed to live.”
She gets me. But then she offers words of hope:
“In the next several chapters, we’re going to talk about how our head keeps us bogged down in clutter – the lies we tell ourselves to keep clutter alive and how we can retrain our mind to stop trusting in stuff to meet our needs.”
Really, Kathi?
I have read several of Kathi’s other books. Most recently The Cure for The Perfect Life and her practical, spiritual, and humorous ways to handle my procrastination worked wonders so why not trust her with my clutter? She invited me to be a part of her book launch and I accepted, willing to be clutter vulnerable with the world.
Clutter Free discusses how to get rid of stuff, how to keep it from coming into my home; and why I keep it, and more.
The chapters on what it is costing me tugged at my heart knowing my clutter keeps me from entertaining, from enjoying my hobbies, and from following God’s plan for my life.
As of today, at least 25o items are gone, most of them trash and some to give away. My mom’s piano and unnecessary items from my remodeled kitchen have found homes.
Freedom, peace…HOPE
Sharon Paavola
Sharon writes about hope, healing, and God’s love along with book reviews.
Purchase Clutter Free – Quick and Easy Steps to Simplifying Your Space on Amazon or Barnes & Noble now!
