You guys, there are SO MANY and many are broad/vague, so if you have specifics, that would help me GREATLY.Īgh! Well, okay, I have a lot of closets (coat, my closet, kids’ closets, laundry room, etc) and try to edit them as often as I can. I’m going to answer a few more questions before I head out. If you have any additional “five minute” ideas, please share those too! I am always SO CURIOUS about how you spring clean/purge your house. So, that’s my random Tidying Up Tuesday idea for you 🙂. That’s a smaller, more manageable task that they can/will actually do right then. They also get overwhelmed if I say “go clean out your closet” versus me saying “go clean out your top drawer”.

Plus bonus, my kiddos have their set daily chores (laundry, making their bed, setting the table, walking dogs, etc), but this helps me help them keep their spaces more organized too. I personally get SO MUCH MORE ACCOMPLISHED in the smaller five minute increments. I mean, you see what I do here? My list is longer and more specific to my house, but anytime I see something around my house or think of something that I *should* do around my house, I add it to my list. Toss broken items/trash/anything random that is junk from the kids’ play room.One at a time, tackle each drawer in my closet (undies, workout clothes, swimsuits…not all at once, one drawer at a time).Throw out old papers, coloring books, broken pencils in the craft drawer.Thus, here is an abbreviated version of my list should you want to try this (in no particular order, I just write them down and complete them as I think of things): This works so well for me because it’s easy to find an extra five minutes and then, I’m always shocked at how productive I can be in such a short amount of focused time. I only do it for five minutes and then move on. Instead now, I make a list on my phone (of course!) of smaller things and then try to do one every day…BUT…I set my watch timer for five minutes, and that’s it. I used to try and set aside all of this time to “tackle my closet” or whatever, but that didn’t work well for me because, where is this magical time I’m supposed to find? Instead, I wouldn’t find this time and the clutter would weigh on me, and I would be hard on myself for “not doing it”. Right now, instead of setting aside a massive amount of time to “purge/clean/declutter”, I just do small things that take no longer than five minutes. So, I thought I’d share in case you want to try it too (or want to contribute to my ideas!). Sooooo…why am I sharing this today? Because I think the older I get, the more I learn about myself, my motives, my strengths and weaknesses and my current approach is working much better for me than back in the day when I did something else. One of the HARDEST parts about our home being destroyed and then rebuilt in 2020 was all I wanted to do was clean my house to cope with the stress…but said house was under construction and therefore, I couldn’t clean it. I’m really sad? Give me a junk drawer to organize. You guys also know this about me, cleaning and purging out my home is what relaxes me. I’m here for allllllll of the books filled with ideas and inspirations to get me cleaning and organizing. I have read (AND LOVED!) probably the same books you have on cleaning and organizing like Marie Kondo’s The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up or Ruth Soukup’s Unstuffed. I always know you guys are “my people” but reading questions like this just confirms that we really are kindred spirits. Maybe we’re all in that weird place between those New Year’s Resolutions and Spring Cleaning…but it’s been a very popular “can you please blog about” request… Well, I’ve had a lot of questions lately over cleaning up/organizing/purging/getting your house in order.

Tidy up organizing