Mini Mission Monday is about finding ten minutes a day to declutter. To make it easy for you, each Monday I set seven declutter missions, one for each day of the week for you to follow. It takes the guess work out of decluttering and makes it easy and “fun” for you to achieve some quick decluttering.
Our declutter missions don’t always have to be about decluttering. Sometimes clutter forms due to poor organising causing you to purchase a duplicate item simply because you can’t find it when it is needed. So this week we are going to do a little organising. To be more specific it is about rounding up like items in your home so they are all corralled in the same place making them easier to find when you need them. Sometimes two places is appropriate but multiple places is a recipe for clutter if ever there was one. So I will name an item category and you can check that these items are all accounted for and only stored in one or at the most two places in your home. Of course you might as well declutter the excess while you are at it. And naturally this exercise is only useful if you and your family commit to putting these items back in there rightful place every time they are used.
Monday – Round up and declutter small tools ~ Most of our tools are kept in the garage with the exception of one small tool kit with holds a few often used items that saves me having to go out to the garage to retrieve them when needed.
Tuesday – Round up and declutter shoes ~ Do you have shoes in the car, shoes in your bedroom, shoes at both the front and back doors? Why not find a simple solution to keep the bulk of them in one area.
Wednesday – Round up and declutter stationery ~ Keep a pen in each room of the house if that makes your life easy but the bulk of your stationary items will be more easily found if they are all stored together. If you don’t have a desk or set of drawers for this task why not use that spare shelf you have cleared in the linen closet during your last towel and sheet declutter.
Thursday – Round up and declutter small kitchen appliances ~ Choose one cupboard or shelf in in the kitchen for all of these appliances. I have done this in my kitchen with the exception of the toaster and kettle which are located on the bench top because they are used very regularly.
Friday – Round up and declutter hair accessories ~ These tend to end up scattered all over the place making them impossible to find when you need them. They end up in school bags, handbags, bathroom drawers, bedside cabinets, in the little nooks and crannies in the car, sports/gym bags, coat pockets and even under the sofa cushions. I own four hair clips but at the moment I only know where two of them are and they aren’t my favourite two.
Saturday – Round up and declutter household cleaners ~ I keep kitchen cleaners and the all-purpose spray that gets used most days in the kitchen but all other cleaners are kept in the laundry cupboard. It may seem convenient to have toilet cleaners next to every toilet and a bottle of all purpose cleaner in every bathroom cabinet but what this really is is clutter. Don’t just round these up reduce them to one of each. After all the extra exercise to collect them from a central position when you need them will do you a world of good. I do keep a microfibre cloth in the upstairs bathroom because in reality microfibre will wipe up any mess and eliminate 99% of germs so there really is no need for chemical cleaners anyway.
Sunday - Sunday is reserved for contemplating one particular item, of your choice that is proving difficult for you to declutter. Whether that be for sentimental reasons, practical reasons, because the task is laborious or simply unpleasant, or because the items removal requires the cooperation of another person. That last category may mean that the item belongs to someone else who has to give their approval, it could also mean there is a joint decision to be made or it could mean that the task of removing it requires assistance from someone else. There is no need to act on this contemplation immediately, it is more about formulating a plan to act upon or simply making a decision one way or another.
It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow
For the most part I think everything of like kind should be in one place. I have to admit though that I like to have a pen and scissors in each room. They are placed in a specific place and returned there after use but it is nice to have them so I can grab them without getting up and moving to another part of the house.
I thought about your roundup idea last week. I had been going through sewing material, and realized I had a lot of solid whites–used & new–and I wanted to get to the minimum volume level so decided to go through again and take out all of the solid white. I found out there was more than I thought. So the used immediately became rags material–we use a lot in the kitchen & bathrooms instead of paper towels (used only in the microwave or for absorbing grease from fried foods to make them a little less fattening). If I had not got them all in one place, I would have just culled a few & thought I had done a great job. I haven’t finished yet, but some will go to the thrift shop, and maybe some more to the rags (I tear them to the best size and stuff them in an empty facial tissue box–saves a lot of space storing them.) My husband uses some in his shop, too.
So a roundup is a great idea to use on anything. I think I did the stationery one about a year ago and gave the excess along with Valentine and birthday cards to my daughter and her children. Everyone I used to write letters to is on the Internet now, so I never use stationery except maybe a short note at Christmas.
I discovered a new form of decluttering last week. I call it “Unsanctioned Party While Parents Are Away Decluttering”. It involves parents going out of town for a lovely weekend and one of the teens left behind deciding to host a shindig. Yes, its a bit of a classic isn’t it. He thought we’d never notice. Fortunately no major damage but alas a few things missing and a number of items used up – for example they seemed to have discovered our stash of left over fireworks in the hall cupboard because teens, alcohol and explosives are such a brilliant combination! On the upside, they were earmarked to be used up this year so I shall be a positive person and say that box is now ticked. Light bulbs gone and a few other strange items missing, obviously someone has set up flat recently and needed a few household items but nothing I am too upset about. Fortunately most of the soiree was held on the back deck and clean up was the main issue rather than the house being trashed. Hopefully my neighbours won’t hold a grudge too long.
Oh Moni,
good that the house wasn’t trashed but bad, bad kiddie! Why am I not so surprised that it was the “he”?!
My personal mini missions this week will be using up and cleaning “the pantry” and I have a recipe to share with you since you got into cooking so much: Banana cookies. It’s probably an old thing but I just discovered it and find it perfect because it’s super easy, super healthy, super quick and you can use up nuts, dried fruit, cereal … whatever. And yeah, old bananas of course (though I think they don’t need to be old, fresh ones work as well you just have to mash a little longer. And I use regular oats either chopped up or not, depends on my time, and I use closer to 1,5 cups)
http://www.theburlapbag.com/2012/07/2-ingredient-cookies-plus-the-mix-ins-of-your-choice/
Ideealistin – Bad kiddie, indeed!
Moni, I’m glad that you didn’t come home to too much damage. I “helped” to declutter some of my parents’ drinking glasses the same way many years ago. I’m sure that they were grateful but just never got around to letting me know.
Donna B – a friend told me a story about how she held a party while her parents were away and she did a massive clean up etc but they noticed one pull tab from a beer can under the sofa and she was caught.
That’s funny about the tab. If my son continues his messy ways, I’ll be on to him when he’s old enough to have parties when we’re not home. My daughter might be a bit more cautious, but with her personality, she probably wouldn’t have a party if we told her not to. How naive am I?
Donna B – if my middle child, oldest daughter (and the one who was actually un-officially in charge) had thrown the party, we would probably have never known as she is meticulous about tidying up. Having said that, she’d be up front about it. She had ballet on the Friday evening and got dropped home to see there was a party underway. She figured no one was going to listen to her (esp not her brother), and if she rang us we’d turn around and come home again, and if she rang her uncle it could probably get confrontational (no reflection on the uncle, but rather the party attendees), the best thing she could do was run around the house put away the remotes and anything of value, lock our bedroom and go for damage control. And look out for younger sister who was freaking out. Next morning she presented her brother with a list of clean up duties required, he did two items on the list before leaving for the day. She told younger sister that they weren’t going to do it for him and that they weren’t going to ring us and ruin our first ever weekend away without them. Brother was very surprised his sisters didn’t do the clean up for him.
My daughter wanted it mentioned it was very easy to find everything that needed to be put out of sight easily, and there was plenty of room in the lock drawer that she put them in. Apparently it probably would have been fine except friends of friends turned up, and then friends of friends of friends turned up…….
Moni, Good for middle child. I’m glad the girls didn’t clean up for him.
That would be the last time for “he” to do that. So what kind of punishment did you come up with? Why do kids think we won’t know? Glad it wasn’t worse.
Deb J – well, everything had to be put to rights and this weekend just gone we had to go out of town again but this time with the girls too……he had to pack a bag, hand over his house key and stay with a friend for the weekend as we weren’t going to risk that again. As his car is off the road at the moment, he wasn’t allowed to borrow one of the others, which ticked him off the most and aside from that there was lengthy dialogue on the subject.
Good for you. He knows better. He will get over being ticked.
This weekend was super productive. I am nearly finished with the exterior painting. We installed a window trim that needed to be replaced due to rot, did some caulking, some sanding on another trim piece, priming and got three of the windows completely repainted. While I was waiting for things to dry so I could continue on, I cleaned out the parts of the garden that were destroyed in the 8/3 storm. We get our new roof on Oct. 2nd (weather permitting – although it is raining AGAIN!), so I must absolutely have the rest of the exterior done by then so that I don’t drip paint on the new roof, like I did when we got our new roof after the ’08 tornado. I also did some gathering of things that were not in their proper places and did a pretty minor organization of the shed. I have two things that I need to take to Habitat for Humanity and then everything should be removed from the shed so the floor can be cleaned. It has a layer of fine dirt from the flood – probably just a good sweeping is all that needs.
Moni, I am so glad you didn’t have major damage. A friend’s son had a party while his parents were out of town and it was a nightmare when they returned. Glad that didn’t turn out to be the case for you!
Wow Michelle! It sounds like you really had a good weekend of taking care of business. I know you will be so very glad when all of this is behind you.
Hi Deb J – it sure does feel good to get these tasks finished (or just about finished). My husband wants to know why I can’t just relax at home. Well, there’s simply always something that needs to be done. 😉
Not that I’m looking forward to more work, but I am really hoping that we get a few more weeks of good weather. I checked my tomato plants and they are full of green tomatoes. If there is enough time for them to ripen, then I will can a batch and I do so love my own sauce. And obviously, then I have to “declutter” the garden for wintertime. LOL
Men! They don’t seem to understand. We don’t want to leave things until someday. We want it done and overwith.
Michelle, I’d love to be that productive. It makes me tired (and lazy) just to read about all you accomplished. Meanwhile, I can’t even seem to get my dining room cleaned up. The piano lid is closed and covered with papers, magazines, etc., as is a spare chair and my sewing table (yes, there’s more in the dining room than the dining room table – also have a couple of fish tanks). I try to clean it up and then walk around in circles wondering what to do with everything. I think I’ll make another attempt now.
Hi Donna B – you’ll get there. Sometimes it can be a frustrating process and sometimes it feels liberating! 🙂
Arrrghhh, the shoes!! They are EVERYWHERE. One of the disadvantages of living in a bigger house! At the moment there are pairs 1) in the main hallway 2) by the verandah door 3) inside the rear entrance 4) on the rear porch. I do a daily pick up but my husband and son just WON’T put them away.
I love reading over the missions at the beginning of the week and then let my subconscious take over. All of a sudden places I had not thought much about get on my radar screen. So this week the place was under my sink with cleaning supplies. I have just recently moved back into my home after being gone for 8 months. I decluttered profusely before so there are only a few places that need attention at this time but one of those was cleaning supplies. I had packed up everything in my house last December so a family could stay her while their house was remodeled. So in consideration I left cleaning supplies, so she would not have to buy more. Well, in consideration, she left cleaning supplies! Imagine my disgust when I finally went through these supplies to find 3 bottles of rubbing alcohol! I had just bought a bottle because I assumed I did not have any. So all is now consolidated. I used up one bottle of cleaner right away because there was just a tiny bit in there. I had to re-organize a bit and luckily had an empty organizer that has been sitting around since I got back a month ago. So I feel really in good shape now. I know the mini-missions are hard to come up with at times but I really love them!