Less is More

Do you live surrounded by clutter yet spend your precious mental energy buying more stuff? Do you have more books & movies than you could watch in a lifetime? Are you providing for the care and feeding of paper that appears to be successfully reproducing itself when the lights go out? Do you want to live in simplicity and peace? You can turn this around for yourself without cleaning it, organizing it, or throwing it all out.

Because you are a perfectionist and you are waiting for the magical day when it will all be squared away, you are too tired, too drained, too confused, and too defeated to try cleaning it up even one more time. I understand because I have been there too.

If you use my system you will become more organized every day by becoming more functional. Functional means knowing where your keys and cell phone are, being able to put your hands on your bills and on paper, pens, envelopes, and stamps when you need them. Because you are going to enjoy that feeling so much that you will want more of it!

You need to have one shelf or surface near your front door where you will keep four boxes the size of shoe boxes. Box #1 is for keys, wallet, cell phone. Box #2 is for envelopes, stamps, pens, scissors, and tape. Box #3 is for bills and important papers. Box #4 is for returns, like movies, books, and stuff that is going out of your house. Keep a trash can right outside your front door and use it often! When you get the mail, toss everything except your bills, your checks, and your important correspondence before it comes into the house.

When you generate trash each day, take it to the trash can in front of your house. Take all the unused trash cans in the house and place them outside. You must follow this rule: bring NOTHING into the house until every trash can is filled and taken by the sanitation service, then you can bring one THING in. Otherwise, try to live on what you have cluttering up your house.

Need money? Sell stuff on Craigslist. Hungry, swim through the debris in the kitchen and sweep everything off the counters with your arms. Take food out of the fridge until you find something that doen't have mold, taking the bad stuff to the trash can outside your front door. While the food is cooking or heating up, wash just the dishes you need to eat with at this meal, plus wash dishes for the next meal. Eat. Take the trash from this meal out to the trash can in front of your house. Then wash all the dishes in the kitchen and put them away.

Tip #1: Your kitchen should contain ONLY two glasses, two plates, two bowls, two spoons, and two forks for each person in your household. Pick your favorites and put them in the cabinets and take all the extras to a thrift store ASAP. Do NOT buy anything at the thrift store.

By the time you have eaten and washed your dishes, you need to think about tomorrow. Find ONLY the clothes that you plan to wear tomorrow, then wash them and fold them and put them away. Sweep the rest of the clothes, shoes, and accessorie into a pile. Make a big pile in the corner. The goal is to have a bed you can lay out on full length to get a good nights sleep because you deserve it!. You and your family also deserve to have clean clothes for tomorrow, and only for tomorrow.

Tip #2: When you watch tv make it a habit to get up during every commercial and take seven articles of trash to the trash can outside of your front door. Make a game out of it! Anything goes, including old newspapers, magazines, magazine clippings, empty food containers, dog poop, dust bunnies, and even old shoes.

If you want a snack, first go into your bathroom and clean one of the following: sink, toilet, tub, floor, mirror, counter, cabinet. Then wade into the kitchen and get one item to eat, taking all your trash to the trash can outside the front door.

Tip #3: Don't buy another item to eat until your refrigerator is completely empty. Then wash the refrigerator and make a menu for the next week, trying to make use of the items overflowing from the cupboards. Be creative! You may be able to save hundreds of dollars in food costs by eating what you have and trip over, rather than buying things you don't have room to store.

Before you go to bed for the night, make sure your cell phone, keys, and wallet/purse are in the box by the door. Make sure your freshly laundered clothes are put away. This is the highest priority every day.

Tip #4: Get big cardboard boxes at work. Bring them home and immediately fill them with clutter from your entry way. Grab things like toiletries out of the pile if you see them and take those things to the bathroom--toss them on the floor with everything else. If you see clothes, take them to the huge pile in your room--that goes for shoes and accessories. If you find bills, stamps, pens, tape, scissors or stamps then put them in the box by the front door. If you feel like taking any trash that you see out to the trash can by your front door, then that's fine. Fill that cardboard box up, close it after rescuing any returns (which go in the box by the front door). Keep bringing home boxes, and box up the clutter stacking the boxes up to the ceiling. Don't organize anything! Do NOT under any circumstance label anything. Leave important things on the floor where you might find them again. If you simply MUST, then put important paperwork in the special box by the door, and put the miscellaneous paperwork in one box near the front door. If you have to find something that is where it could probably be.

In the morning, you should shower and dress as soon as you get up. Then stand and supervise your children dressing in their clean clothes. If your kids are small, you can clean the sink or the floor or the toilet while they bathe. When everyone is dressed then assemble everyone in the kitchen where you will prepare/find food, wash dishes for the next meal, and get everyone to take some trash to the trash can outside your door. Don't do too much today. Get the kids to school and take a box of extra kitchen stuff to the thrift store, then go to work. Work like a dog and try to get as much stuff done as possible. Be sure and file everything away and clean your desk off before heading home.

As soon as you get home assemble everybody in the kitchen/dining room, clear a table (just shove the crap onto the floor), do homework with the kids while you prepare a meal and clean the fridge out. Every day you should:

If it's open, close it.
If it's on the floor pick it up.
If it's in the fridge eat it first, then the stuff in the freezer, then the stuff in the cabinets.
If you have two of the same thing, give one away.
If you need it, do without or dig it out of the mess.
If you wear it, put it in the: hamper, washer, closet, drawer, give-away pile.
If you want to keep it, then take care of it.
If its in a pile, it was never that important.
People are more important than things.

Smile and remember that Less is more!