Disclosure: This post is sponsored by the makers of Clorox® Disinfecting Wipes, the quick and easy way to clean and disinfect your home! This daily habits post was written and created solely by The Inspired Room.
I’ve got an awesome ($500 worth of awesome)
gift card giveaway for you today.
You do like Target and The Container Store, right?
Alright then! Don’t miss the end of this post!
I don’t know about you, but when my home gets cluttered and out of control, I feel personally out of sorts and out of control. The state of my home really affects my emotional well being and my productivity.
Do you find clutter affects you that way as well?
Because clutter impacts me so much, it is very helpful for me to have daily routines to keep clutter and stress at bay. I’ll admit there are hectic seasons of life where it can be particularly challenging to keep order, but interestingly the busier I am the more important it becomes to stick to daily habits.
So where do we begin to form new habits?
Here is a 30 day habit forming plan I created for myself that takes loads of stress off my shoulders when I need to form new clutter-busting habits at my home! Hopefully it will help you too.
Ready?
It is as easy as:
1. Find four clutter hotspots in your home.
Where does most of your daily clutter land and the frustration begin?
Make a list of four problem areas in your home — the ones that REALLY drive you crazy every day. Think about manageable surfaces or identifiable areas of rooms rather than an entire room. Perhaps areas such as your kitchen or bathroom counters, a dining table, the floor around the front door, laundry baskets or your nightstand. If you have more than four, don’t worry. You can get to those later. For now, just pick the four most visible or frustrating areas. If you have one room that is a real problem every day, perhaps pick four manageable surfaces, closets or drawers all in that one space.
2. Select one outside hotspot.
Once you identify those daily clutter hotspots inside, think about areas outside of your home that cause you stress, frustrate or embarrass you regularly as well, such as your purse, car or front porch. Choose the worst daily offender. You’ll attack the rest later.
You should now be able to identify your top 5 worst clutter hotspots! Hooray! Now you know where to focus your attention.
Don’t you feel better already knowing you have narrowed down the biggest offenders?
You can do this. I promise.
REMEMBER: Don’t worry right now about how to solve every possible clutter problem all over the house, that can be overwhelming. Stay focused and you’ll succeed!
3. Create 5 daily new habits corresponding to your 5 clutter hot spots.
Now you can begin your plan of attack for creating 5 new daily habits to overcome clutter and stress in those 5 problematic areas!
Take a look at your five previously stressful hotspots. Looking good, right? Now let’s keep ‘em that way.
What simple daily habits and routines will keep those clutter hot spots from piling up again?
Grab a piece of paper and identify one daily routine for each of the five areas.
Here are some examples of habits you might adopt:
See how easy and fun this is?
Doable, right?
Remember: It takes about 30 days to form a new habit or routine.
You’ve got this!
- 1, 2, 3 steps to begin, 5 hotspots, 5 habits and 30 days to get in the groove.
- So many numbers today! 1, 2, 3, 5, 5 and 30.
- Oh, and don’t forget the big number. 500 big ones.
Wish you could go on a $500 organizational and cleaning supply shopping spree to Target and The Container Store? Um, hello, WHO WOULDN’T?
*One entry per person, answer the question below in the comments.
*Sweepstakes ends March 22, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. ET
*One prize:
$350 Target Gift Card and $150 The Container Store Gift Card
*Please see official rules and regulations for all the details.
this giveaway post is generously sponsored by the makers of Clorox® Disinfecting Wipes,
The bedroom! I stuff all the “stuff” in there when company is coming. It doesn’t always get cleaned out, so it piles up until I get frustrated and tackle it.
It’s a tossup between the kitchen and my bedroom. I don’t have a place for everything!
My 1939 Kitchen is the biggest clutter zone in my cottage home. It needs a make-over! Thanks for sharing your organizational tips.
The kitchen Island counter is my clutter catch all! With 3 adult children living back at home all the mail gets piled there and I don’t feel like it can be thrown until they’ve seen it. I bought a little letter/pen/file box to sit right there and labeled files thinking it would help but now thats a cluttered mess too! I told everyone I am about to get my label maker out and put their names on a glass so they just have one for the day and my counter isn’t clutter with dirty glasses!
My entry way is a total clutter zone. Shoes coats rain gear pocketbooks etc…Lots of stuff with 2 generations living in one house…Would love to organize this part of my house ….I think I can…I think I can.Yes I will!!
I love hearing how other families cope with clutter. Any helpful hints are always worth trying with my family. I really love all your ideas. Anything that can make chores around the house quicker and simplified, will give us all time with those who are most important to us.
Anywhere my husband dumps stuff! Living room, kitchen counter, dining room table, everywhere! I am an extremely organized person by nature, but he makes a mess everywhere! I can’t stand it! I need tips to keep a PERSON organized, not just PLACES! (I really do love the guy, though!
)
our bedroom! mostly because i hide stuff in there that needs dealt with and my hubs is awful about picking up his stuff =)
I live in an extremely small (600 sq ft.) apartment! I find the bedroom is the most cluttered because everything that doesn’t fit in the living room, dining room area is dumped in the bedroom “to be sorted out later!) Of course, “later” never comes! Any help with this would be hugely appreciated!!
Love your blog!
Maureen Sebek
My clutter spot is my back entryway. We enter our home from the garagevin to this room. There is an adjacent half bath, a laundry room, and a large walk-in closet. This is kind of the dumping room from dirt and sand to shoes, boots, and jackets! I am constantly using my chlorox wipes to clean the door, the floor, and the door knobs. I would love to have a wonderfully organized closet and Laundry room. So often we have friends stop over and they seem to come in that back entry door. It is a little embarrassing to have shoes all over and jackets laying on the bench. Would lve to get it de-cluttered and keep it that way!!! Love all of your fabulous ideas!!!
Probably a toss up between my kitchen and kid’s room. Looking forward to trying some of these tips. Thanks for the chance to win!
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my bedroom is my main clutter spot! That’s where everything is put for me to get to later when I declutter other areas. Then things happen and it piles up!
my kitchen counters are always cluttered, and clutter keeps me from cleaning like i would like to
Doesn’t it seem the smallest spaces collect the most clutter? Toss between my kitchen table or closets. Thanks for the awesome tips and a chance for those 2 fab give aways!
I need to conquer the small rain forest worth of trees in the form of paper that enters this house daily.
My kitchen counter tops!! Thanks for such a helpful post and great giveaway! As a young mom I need all the help I can get.
This has been a busy year for my family so I’ve got a few hotspots of clutter. I think the one that bothers me the most is my dining room table where all the mail, etc gets dumped. I’m going to pick up a stand up file this weekend and that’ll be a start in the right direction.
For me, my room is the “hidden” room that gets everything dumped to hide. For my kids, our back door entry is hard to keep picked up…school bags, instruments, gym bags. They are in the process of helping to plan, create and build a wall of organization that will help them to keep the entrance in their game room picked up.
Twitter: Kellock
says:
My back door entry. I have two teenage boys and they want to throw hings down immediately. Friends always come through that door and I immediately get cringe before they even really enter my house.
kind of a toss up between the kitchen (counters especially) and our master bedroom – where stuff goes to hide. I am working on both of them but it is a challenge for sure!
Our Bedroom is our biggest clutter spot. As with other commenters, our bedroom becomes the catch-all/hiding place when there’s seemingly no other area to place the items.
Dining room table. Aargh! Smack-dab in the middle of an open floor plan. Convenient resting place for papers and clean laundry. Family makes “just for fun” bets on whether it will be cleared off in time for whatever holiday dinner is next on the calendar.
The kitchen! The kitchen table is my biggest hotspot – and the area I would most like to keep stuff away from!
The livingroom. It’s the first room when you enter the house. We kick off our shoes and put down whatever is in our hands (often times they’ll remain there indefinitely for lack of a better place). Random stuff just gravitates there.