Spring Cleaning, Efficiency style!

Putter and Declutter

If you’ve been following us for awhile than you know how much we love to putter and declutter. Its the most efficient habit you should really work into your daily life! This is the best first step towards a cleaner house. Once you have everything put away it makes the “big” tasks less intimidating. Walk around your house, get the kids involved too, and just pick up and return things to where they belong. Dirty socks in the hamper, toys in their bins, dishes in the sink, etc. Putter around till every thing is at least in the right room. Keep an ongoing box in the garage for donations so you can declutter and purge as you putter. Pro tip: call a friend or blast some music while you pick up, in fact use a long phone call as a mental trigger to get some steps in an put some shit away! Next time your sister calls think to yourself, “Time to putter!”

One Area at a time…One cupboard at a time

Once all of the crap laying around the house is at least in the right room it should live in than all you have to do is start somewhere…pick a room, any room! Start with a desk drawer, dump the whole thing out give it a good wipe and then put back only what you use and need, toss or donate what you don’t. It only takes a few minutes to organize one shelf, drawer or cupboard at a time. When you have eliminated the junk from one room start over in the next.

Touch It Once

When you’re cleaning, coming home after picking kids up from school or even just walking in from the mail box with arms full of junk mail, touch it once! Put the junk where it goes the moment it enters the house to avoid shuffling the shit around, creating piles on your counters, stacks on your table tops and shoes littering the halls. This is the MOST difficult habit for most of our clients to adopt, but sooner or later you will hear us in your head saying, ”Touch it once! That doesn’t live there!” Try to get the whole family to make an effort to keep the heaps and piles from taking over. Set up systems, stations and drop zones to corral the crap. In the long run you’ll be saving a shit ton of time and energy if you just TOUCH IT ONCE!

One Month Box Challenge

I love doing this at least once a year. Its kinda like, “when in doubt throw it out” but with out the doubt. Try it in the kitchen first, empty a whole drawer of utensils into a box. Over the next few weeks when you need something from the box, use it then put it back in the drawer. At the end of the month donate whatever is left in the box because you obviously don’t use it enough! This is such a great way to figure out what you really need and what is just taking up space.