This week I am talking all about cleaning out my closet.
Let me start by mentioning that this tip is certainly not one that I came up with on my own, it is from the fly lady program. A system designed to help messy people like me clean up their act. There are a lot of special tools, tips, and ideas that are promoted on this website, but a few of them have been extremely instrumental to me.

First of all the timer method. Fly Lady’s motto is “I can do anything for 15 minutes.” It helps you avoid becoming overwhelmed when you look at things in small increments.

For example I could look at my closet (shown above) and just panic thinking it would take me all day or more to get anything done, but if I just allow myself 15 minutes I can feel like this is an obtainable goal.

It ended up taking two 15 minute cleaning sessions, both of which I spent around 15 minutes putting everything away (a VERY crucial part of the process I might add). So, about an hour. It is not perfect, but that is another thing that people like me have to watch out for. “The All or Nothing Mentality”, as I like to put it, which means since you can’t do it all you end up doing nothing. Being a perfectionist only makes matters worse.

The second Fly Lady tip I used to get the job done is “Throw Away, Give Away, or Put Away” boxes. You take 3 bins, one of which is lined with a trash bag, and as you sort through your disaster area you have 3 options; it is either trash, donation, or you have a specific place that you can keep the item.

In the end I threw a lot of stuff away. I realized I didn’t need to hang onto all of those shopping bags and I found a bottle of eye drops that expired in 1993 (which is crazy because I was eleven and I have moved 4 times since then?!) I also have a box that I have a local charity scheduled to pick up this week. The rest I put away, I even grabbed an old shelf that wasn't being used and look at the difference.

You can actually see the floor. That’s one less thing on my to do list. Let’s see … now I only have 3 more closets that I need to get to, I better sign off.



For more works for me wednesday go to rocksinmydryer.net