Today’s Topic & What You’ll Learn
- How to find a place for all the new things you get
- Ways to go through your home to declutter the excess stuff
- Who can help you make space
- Ways to organize the toys
- A way to reduce the accumulation in the future
Mama Robbins
As parents, we spend months preparing for the BIG DAY, December 25th. Unless you are a last minute shopper. Then it’s only a mere few days! Either way, we shop for our kids and family and our family shops for our kids and us. Once Christmas is over, you look at your house thinking – Where am I going to put all this? Do I even have room for it all?
Welcome to the wonderful world of Organization! If your house is already in tip top shape – I want to hear from you! Everyone can always benefit from more moms like you! 🙂
Okay, so some of you may be thinking, my kids are fine, they didn’t get much! That is great. Actually, this allows you to ensure all those toys can find a place! But wait! What if you didn’t get much, but you still have nowhere to put anything? The closets are full, the toy bins are overflowing and they just have SO MUCH CUTE STUFF. How can we ever part from it! Or, you are the complete opposite. Your kids have so much stuff, heaping piles of everything! Let’s start with a few basics that can get you started to a less cluttered home! Keep in mind, things sometimes get worse before they get better!
- OVERALL HOUSE SWEEP – Do an overall sweep of your home and only move things to the room they should go in (you can tidy later) Goal is just to have everything in the correct room.
- ONE ROOM AT A TIME – Trying to do the entire house is extremely stressful. Start with the most cluttered room first.
- WHO CAN HELP YOU (OLDER KIDS) – If your kids are old enough and depending how much stuff they have, set a limit by number or space to which EVERYTHING must fit. What doesn’t fit, goes. (You can donate, sell, etc)
- WHO CAN HELP YOU (YOUNGER KIDS) – If your kids are younger, you can make the decision. This is way easier in my opinion as you have no one to be conflicted on letting Little Fluffy go. If you still want your little ones to be part of the process, you can even do simple things like asking “which one do they like more?”. You will want to put two different piles, but do NOT get rid of these things while they are there! You will likely have a tantrum on your hands!
- DO YOU NEED MORE STORAGE OPTIONS – Having a home for everything is key to keeping things in place. Using plastic containers, boxes, Dollar Store storage. You can teach your kids where things go, why they have a home and how much easier it is later to put them back and find them.
- HOW MANY TOYS SHOULD YOU BE LEFT WITH – Personal opinion, you should be able to get everything toy related that is smaller than a barbie car into two large black garbage bags. Large things like doll houses, race car tracks, etc. also need a place. If you still have WAY more than that, you may want to keep downsizing. “Keep in mind – the less you have, the less to clean, the less stress.”
- GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS – Dump all the toys out on the floor. Pick bins, go nuts and label them if need (words if they can read/pictures if they can’t) and start putting the category or toy type in the bins. Example: Girls: Dress-up toys, food, books, small dolls, Barbie dolls, etc. Boys: Toy cars, Lego, trucks, etc. You will likely be left with a “RANDOM”. You can decide if you want to keep those or find a home.
- CLOTHES IN THE CLOSET – My kids had so many clothes at one point, I would wash them, dump the cleans on the floor and let them find what they needed the night before. Sound familiar to you? I had no energy to put away literally 5 feet wide by 2 feet tall of clothing. We had a problem. Pick 20 outfits MAX! 20 Pants, 20 T-Shirts, 20 Long Sleeve, etc. They do not NEED more than that. “But some are just so cute!” Picture this: you do a load of laundry. You don’t feel like doing it at that night, so you wait. Week goes by and now you have two. But even with those two loads you only have 20 outfits in there! Less stress? Yes please!
Once you have done the above basic steps, this will get you on the right track to de-cluttering your home. Now you can find a place for all the new things.
KEY POINT – In order to add anything, clothes, toys, etc, we should give away or rid at least the same amount of items.
If you have any comments or want me to go into more details about anything I have mentioned, leave a comment or email me directly.
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Sincerely,
Mama Robbins
