by kathilipp | Sep 22, 2015 | Blog |
A Series by Paula Tobey
How many times have you literally just picked up all of the toys, quickly threw them in the toy bin, only to turn around after one minute (literally one minute- and you know this because you are re-heating your cold coffee in the microwave) to find your toddler has pulled out all of the toys you so desperately wanted put away?? AAugghhh. Again!!
Such is the life of a mom with a toddler- or two! Yikes, I remember those days. They were also a blur. It may be because I was sleep deprived, but either way, what I do remember is that it was hard!
I’m here to tell you- there is HOPE! And this hope comes wearing a cape. (Enter SuperMom)
The super mom I speak of is the one I imagined myself to look like, if I had my life all together when my girls were toddlers. So here is what MY SuperMom did. (For me, this did become a reality but not until the girls were older and not toddlers anymore).
[Tweet “Parents Guide to #Decluttering: Stage Two – Toddlers #clutterfree #parenting”]
Declutter the toys-
Toys are something that your child needs developmentally and socially. However, when the toys no longer serve that purpose and they are crazy clutter, it is time to part ways. (Maybe slowly because if the child knows they are gone, s/he may turn into the Tasmanian devil). Nap time/ MDO is a perfect opportunity to go through the toys. I started doing this monthly when my girls were in preschool and it was wonderful! Get rid of the excess (ones missing pieces or are just not loved).
Have a BTH day-
No not bath. B.T.H., Bless the Home Day. This is a day (or a few broken up) where you dedicate to cleaning. Blessing the Home means you are bringing peace, organization and happiness to your home. You are literally pouring blessings onto your family by having a clean, neat space for them. (When I first wrapped my brain around the idea of a home blessing, my whole attitude changed about cleaning! REALLY. Try it!
Hoe out closets–
I did this (till it was bare or next to bare) twice a year. Winter and Spring- now I have the kids help. We see what fits, what doesn’t, what has stains, holes etc. and get RID of all the clothing that is not working. We bag up most of it to donate and throw out the things that are- well just that bad. There is something so freeing about looking into a closet that is organized! (If you are looking for help, I have a video on YouTube about it).
Help Mommy Clean–
My girls have always been great helpers. When they were little, the ‘help’ was not always that helpful but I realized they felt empowered when they helped with chores. I looked into routines for kids by ages and what I found surprised me. Kids can really do a lot of things at a young age if you actually LET them. Perfectionism is usually what stops that. Don’t be a perfectionist. Just let them help! Chose one thing at first, then two, then more things that they can help you with. Maybe it’s sorting and matching your Tupperware lids to bowls, maybe its folding towels and wash cloths. Let them help you! They feel good, you get more things done, and truly it is a win, win!
Just remember, what makes you a SuperMom is not getting it all done all by yourself in order to be recognized as a hero and awarded a medal (wishful thinking, right?) The goal is that you have a happy home full of love and laughter and some very little people who desperately want to please. So, go ahead and let them! Now that is what I call a Super Mom!
RELATED RESOURCES
Want even more ways to get rid of the clutter and start living the life you were designed to live? Get Kathi’s book Clutter Free Quick and Easy Steps to Simplify Your Space!
What are your best decluttering tips for before baby? Tell us in the comments below and we will randomly pick one commenter to receive “21 Ways to Connect with Your Kids” by Kathi Lipp and Cheri Gregory.
Do you want more great information to make your family the best it can be? Subscribe to Paula’s blog and get weekly posts and encouragement to help you on your parenting journey. http://phemomenallife.com/
Paula Tobey is founder of PheMOMenal Life Ministries a community for women to go get encouraged and equipped to be the best mom’s they can be to their children by living a healthy balanced life and by becoming all that God created them to be.
by kathilipp | Apr 8, 2015 | Blog |
Friends, I want to introduce you to one of my interns, Paula Tobey. She is an intern, but that’s so misleading, since she has a full-on grown up ministry of her own. (See her links at the bottom of this article.)
“How do I get my child to clean up his room?” is one of the most common questions I get when discussing Clutter Free or my organizing book The Get Yourself Organized Project.
If you want a non-nagging way to help your kids clean up – read on…How to Get Your Kids to Clean Up Their Rooms
How to Get Your Kids to Clean Up Their Rooms
Do you struggle with kids who don’t seem to understand how to throw dirty clothes in a hamper that lies only feet beyond the spot they took off their stinky socks? Do you also battle with not enough time to get your house cleaned (which, let’s be honest, includes picking up your children’s rooms too, making dinner, and feeding all the pets)?
Could you benefit from a few tips that not only will help save you time, but effort in not picking up so much after others? Well, I have some great news for you, my friend, there IS a way!
I read an article a mom wrote into a parenting magazine discussing how she got her eleven year old son to help clean their house for his upcoming birthday party. She found a system that encouraged him to get the job done. Usually it was always a fight to get him to help clean. Maybe you can identify with this. He would never help, complained, and ultimately made the job harder. But this time, she decided to do something different and used a system someone taught her.
In her words, “I told him we were going to spend 15 minutes at a time in each room, and when the timer went off, we would switch rooms. I also told him that every 4th 15 minute segment, we could do whatever we wanted (Video games for him). I let him pick which room to do next, and told him that if he did this with me, he could pick anywhere to go for lunch.”
Her next part really moved me: “From 8am-11am, he worked his little heart out for 45 minutes out of every hour with me. He even brought tears to my eyes when he reminded me that I needed to come back to the room we were working on as I had gotten distracted in the kitchen for a minute. We had such a pleasant day and a nice lunch at his favorite restaurant.”
How valuable was this one tip to her? She says it “saved the relationship that I have with my son. It is his eleventh birthday today, and I have never felt closer to him!” This mom realized that cleaning up her son’s room was the goal but building their relationship in the process was the bigger win!
Using our time wisely seems to be a big challenge with parents and their children. Often we are so rushed to get things done that we don’t take the time to properly plan out what it is we are going to do. Then when it does not go as well as we thought it would, (and let’s be real- often life with kids does not go according to plan J ) we can feel defeated. There are many tools available to parents to help them manage their time and their children’s time. If you invest time planning before asking your child to help with something, it will pay off in many ways.
What my experience has taught me is sharpening my tools requires change. We need to change and grow to be better moms and dads for our kids, because that’s what they need. And if that means investing in ourselves to help change our family’s legacy, isn’t that a worthy investment?
Paula Tobey is a Parenting Coach for families needing extra support getting their families healthier in a Physical, Emotional, Educational, Financial or Spiritual way. She works with family’s one on one and in groups to help them become stronger, happier and healthier. Her website is www.PheMOMenalLife.com and she can also be found at www.ParentingSpecialChildren.com.
Do you sometimes feel like the woman in the story did? Wouldn’t it be great if you had a tangible resource and system to help get your home cleaned up that in turn, saves you time by teaching the system to your kids? Well, the “Get Yourself Organized Project” may be just one of those tools to help you do that. In this book you will get easy and effective ways to restore peace to your everyday life by adding simple and manageable long-term solutions for organizing any room in your home (and keeping it that way). It also has a realistic way to de-stress a busy schedule and has strategies for efficient shopping, meal preparation, cleaning, and more.
Click here for more information about the book.
by kathilipp | Jan 21, 2015 | Clutter Free, Guest Blog |
I’ll Just Put it Here for Now by Alexandra Kuykendall
We have a house with a front door that almost never gets used. Sure we open it to go on the front porch to get the mail, but almost everyone who comes in and out of our house does so by way of the garage and our mud room. The “mud room” is a landing place between our kitchen, laundry room, garage and stairs to our basement. In other words, it’s a vortex of stuff.
And because we are a family of six, we’re talkin’ a lot of stuff. Six people’s worth of backpacks and cleats and sweaters and artwork and leftover lunches, to dump every time we walk in the house.
On top of the regular inflow of clutter, its snow season where we live. Which means for the last month and a half we’ve needed snow boots, hats, gloves, scarves and snow pants for sledding about two times a week. The rest of the days, a single jacket will do because it’s back to Colorado sunshine.
A few days ago, I could barely walk through, not to mention over, all of the MESS that had landed in this spot. Visitors coming in and out of our house were greeted by this “welcome mat” of coats and socks and school papers and lunch boxes strewn everywhere. I needed to do something about this disaster of a space.
I grabbed Kathi Lipp’s newest book, Clutter Free: Quick and easy steps to simplifying your space. This is what I found:
“It’s so easy to just put things somewhere “for now” and then leave them there day after day, week after week, month after month until our house becomes a cluttered mess.”
This landing had become our “for now” spot with all things coming in and out of our home. Kathi asks, “What is causing you to put things down “for now”? Are you feeling too rushed in your everyday life? Is there never a chance to reset?” Ummm….does she have a nannycam positioned in this mudroom of mine? I needed to take the hour required to clear this space of its clutter.
I decided our mud room should hold only immediate needs. The jackets, shoes, backpacks, and gloves we need TODAY as we walk out the door. There shouldn’t be soccer backpacks hanging on hooks because it’s not soccer season. There should be no flip flops in shoe bins when we have snow on the ground. And there should not be four coat options per person when we can only each wear one jacket, one hat, one pair of gloves at a time. All of these things we “put here for now” have overstayed their welcome and need to be tucked away in coat closets and bedroom closets to be brought out in a few days or a few months when we need them.
So I did just that, moved everything back to its designated spot (and in the process redesignated some locations) and gave a bag full of shoes and hats away in the process (tips I also learned from Kathi’s book). With all of the piles cleared out it felt as though I could breathe when I stepped in my house. And when my husband walked in the door he proclaimed, “Praise Jesus!” Well, yes, always. But also thank you Kathi Lipp for a practical nudge to get the clutter out.
Alexandra Kuykendall is a mother of four, ages twelve to three, Alexandra Kuykendall spends her days wiping. Wiping counters, wiping bottoms and wiping tears. Alex lives in Denver with her family where she serves as the Specialty Content Editor for MOPS International (Mothers of Preschoolers). Her first book, The Artist’s Daughter: A Memoir, chronicles her questions of identity from girlhood through motherhood.
Find her at www.AlexandraKuykendall.com.
Are you ready to be Clutter Free? Start the 21-Day Clutter Free challenge! Sign up now!
Purchase Clutter Free – Quick and Easy Steps to Simplifying Your Space on Amazon or Barnes & Noble now!
by kathilipp | Jan 14, 2015 | Clutter Free, Guest Blog |
Our post today contains Mary Lou Caskey’s testimonial about Clutter Free.
“Kathi, thank you so much for your book, Clutter Free: Quick and Easy Steps to Simplifying Your Space.
You shine in so many areas, including encouraging others with God’s Grace, making changes from the inside-out and making things FUN!
I appreciate how the book is written from someone who understands the struggle! The book is filled with GOLDEN NUGGETS that honestly relate to so many areas of life, not just clutter!
Your teaching and tips resonate with me and have made a difference in my life. For example, in just one 15 minute project alone, I received peace, clarity, freedom, hope and so much more.
I had stacks of “ideas” that were costing me time and mental energy to go through each time I needed to find an idea! You will see from the photos that I now have a “clean slate” to work with. Thank you!”
Here is Mary Lou’s before picture of her desk:
Here is picture of Mary Lou’s desk after she spent a little bit of time decluttering:
If you want to read more about Mary Lou’s experience with Clutter Free, visit her blog!
Mary Lou Caskey trains Christian coaches and communicators to influence hearts through the power of story. If you want to become a transformative story-teller, click here to connect with Mary Lou and get her free quiz, “Is It the Best Time to Share a Personal Story?”
Are you ready to be Clutter Free? Start the 21-Day Clutter Free challenge! Sign up now!
by kathilipp | Jan 1, 2015 | Christmas, The Get Organized Project |
Several years ago, my daughter Kimber was the lighting director for A Christmas Carol. Besides getting to gaze at the beautiful lighting that my little girl did, I was reminded of the three ghosts: Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Come. (As a child, I couldn’t understand why Christmas Present wasn’t giving away gifts like Santa Claus. It was implied in the name.)
If there was one thing that you, Christmas Present, could tell future you, Christmas Yet to Come, what would it be? “Remember the killer Rachel Ray roast chicken recipe you tried this year – it was the bomb!” or, “”Don’t forget you bought your Christmas cards at the 50% off sale this year – don’t go and buy more next November!” Well, that is precisely what your Holiday Binder is for.
Put all your favorite recipes, ideas, secret hiding places and gift ideas for next year in a handy binder. Trust me, Christmas Yet to Come will thank you when she doesn’t have to hunt down the artichoke dip recipe.
Then? Make sure to put the binder somewhere that you’ll find it next year.
Are you ready to be Clutter Free? Start the 21-Day Clutter Free challenge! Sign up now!
