In our final week of the Family Declutter Challenge: Letting Go Before the Holidays, we are going to discuss how to manage and maintain our newly decluttered and organized space.
In the previous three weeks, we covered:
- Setting goals for our chosen space
- Making decisions, and taking action when sorting, removing, and donating items
- Organizing what you have left in your space
You may not have completed all the steps in these last three weeks. You may have limited time, your space may be bigger, and you need more than three weeks; you have more stuff, therefore, more decisions to make. Refer back to this series at any time to help you work through your projects, no matter how big or small or how limited time you have.
Decluttering before the holidays can be a great motivator! There is something satisfying about wrapping up the year and starting a fresh year. The process may not be your favorite thing to do, but the end result is worth it! I hear in my classes all the time, “I like having a clean room, just not cleaning it.”
I completely understand this. It’s the feeling of having a clean and organized space that I remind my learners of in every class. That is a big motivator, as well as knowing that they can do it on their own. They can make the decisions, they have control over their environment, and they know what to do to get it that way. Holding onto the feeling of a clean room while making the task of cleaning fun, interesting, or even bearable is an awesome life skill!
The LESS you have, the MORE you will use and appreciate what you have.
Maintaining Your Organized Space
No matter where you decided to declutter and organize during this challenge, I’m sure you don’t want it to go back to the way it was. Not only that, have to reorganize all over again. There will always be things you may change or tweak, but never a complete overhaul if you commit to maintaining.
Here are a few ideas to maintain your space:
- Regular clean-up routine. Whether it’s a few minutes a day or once a week, make cleaning up a routine. It will make it easier in the end to maintain. Like having an annual “Family Declutter Challenge”! When things are completed and you reach a goal together, you can have a family night. Like a night out, game night, or whatever motivates your family as the prize.
- Seasonal Upkeep. Use the seasons, especially with clothes, to make sure you are using everything you are storing and weed out what you aren’t. Over the course of a year, things get collected, and it can add up!
- Large items. You could pick a certain time of year to make sure larger items are still needed. Maybe your neighborhood had an annual garage sale or dumpster day, or you can pick a day on the calendar that is your annual donation drop-off or garage sale. That way, you can collect items for that commitment knowing you are making space. You can do this more often if you’d like, like seasonally; totally up to you how long you want to hold onto things.
- Have before and after photos displayed. Some of us are very visual. Having a reminder of the amazing work that was done and how incredible our space looked after we finished the challenge may be very helpful and motivating to keep things picked up and put away.
- Create fun family cleaning time or have the kids join me in class. Here is a $20 coupon towards first class on Outschool.
- Have accountability with each other and commit to it. The kids can be very motivated seeing their parents cleaning and organizing. I call it being an “organizing influence.” My kids have watched me work on projects, and they now sort through their clothes and other items, knowing when to donate or give away.
Working together and having fun with a family declutter challenge will make keeping the house clean easier and more fun and build a lifelong habit for everyone!
