my family has been on the journey towards minimalism for 5 months now. over the course of the 5 months, i have identified some of the key clutter collection sites in my home:
- kitchen counter (mail, school papers, kids’ artwork)
- bedroom dressers (coins, magazines, books, pocket items, work projects brought home)
- dining room table (toys, shopping bags)
- home office desk (receipts, unpaid bills, computer print-outs, paperwork)
- toy room (toys, toys, toys)
clutter attracts clutter. and these specific areas of my home have brought frustration to my life as they continue to collect clutter even after five months of purging. clearly, they require almost daily attention.
this past weekend i turned a corner in my thinking. i realized that five months ago i would not have been able to identify my clutter collection sites. today, i can tell you what they are and what collects there. i understand the flow of my home enough to realize what needs to be attended to each day. and am now at a place to address those areas and seek solutions.
it’s all part of the process of becoming minimalist.
can you identify your home’s clutter collection sites?
related posts:
My kitchen counter seems to be a dumping ground! My husband dumps the mail there, or tools. My kids dump everything on the kitchen counter. My dining room table is also a dumping ground; homework, backpacks, laundry that my husband washed and won’t fold, more mail, and even trash from snacks the kids bring home. I hate that those two areas collect clutter. I have to constantly clear off those surfaces. I clean them and tell everyone to stop dumping, but the next day it is always the same mess.
I keep a basket at the foot of the stairs and another at the top of the stairs. In the morning, I take everything downstairs. At night, I bring things upstairs.
This is brilliant! I need to do this!
A few collection baskets may come in handy. Carry them from room to room, picking up and dropping off at least once a day.
I’m disabled and can’t get downstairs. My boyfriend never picks things up and puts them away, even though he wanders from room to room many times during the day. He ends up taking an entire day off just to pick up things and put them away where they belong.
I usually clean every time I get up.
I’ll bring things to various rooms as I pass by.
In this way, I never really feel like I’m doing a lot of housework.
i have been clearing out the clutter in our home for a few weeks now, and discovered your blog just a few days ago. I’m reading through some of the old posts (obviously) but i have to say, you are so right about this! My husband works in the pm, while he was working i did some major clutter clearing in the kitchen/dining room and he came home and said ‘wow, the kitchen looks great, what happened’ :)
I went home for lunch today to find the countertop clean, the dining room table clear, no coats or bags on the floor. This has NEVER happened!! I usually spend a good 10 – 15 minutes of my lunch dealing with these things. I could tell I was in a better mood instantly! I guess I had come to expect chaos
I am moving on to the next room ASAP! it seems to be motivating the rest of my family…
My family was not that ambitious.
After my daughter left home, she told me she wanted to come back home, because it was always clean, except I could never get her to participate.
As much as I would have loved to have her at home again, I knew that she was finally learning what she needed to learn about cleaning up after herself.
The whole thing :)