Moving: Time to Be Clutter-Free

For at least a few years now, we have talked about how we'd like to move. The house we are in was supposed to be our "10-year house"; we are a couple months short of having been here 13 years. The interest rates right now are great, house prices steady, so we finally decided, hey, let's see what we can do.

Of course, this means getting the house in order. And to sum that up in one word: Oy.

Fortunately, we haven't found a house to buy that we love yet because the process of decluttering is taking a long time. The amount of stuff that builds up with kids, running an in-home daycare, homeschooling and life over 13 years is quite extensive. Even though we had been giving some stuff away over the years.

FlyLady was a great tool for me in the past. Actually, as I type this, I am reminded that I turned to her the last time we moved, asking for advice! If you are not familiar with FlyLady and would like some help in getting your house organized, clean and just managing it, do check her out. She helped me a great deal! And I go back to certain principles all the time, even though I've never been able to quite hop on board 100% with her approach the way many others have.

Image from http://www.flylady.net

But anyhow, I started doing my decluttering without referring to her. This time, I simply decided I was going to work on a single room, the living room you see as soon as you walk in, until it was "ready", which, it turns out, appears to be somewhat what she recommends. But what is "ready"? I saw I didn't have a clear picture in mind and was slowing down and still seeing how much else there was to do around the house. This just left me feeling a bit discouraged. I changed my mind and adopted her Crisis Cleaning tips to working 45-60 minutes at a time on decluttering. Instead of coming back to the kitchen all the time and taking a break after 3 rounds of 15 minutes of cleaning, I just tackle three different areas, the ones that seem to need it the most, and if I feel up to it, will do a 4th session before stopping for the day (or that part of the day). So far, this is helping me a lot because I'm seeing how key problem areas are improving and it doesn't feel as much anymore that there are so many other rooms "left to do". They're all being worked on and improving. Bit by bit, we're getting clutter-free.

I would post before and after pics, but truly, some of the areas are rather embarrassing and moving is a very good excuse to finally take charge of them. (And I forgot to take a before pic before starting to tackle one of the worst areas...) If you are moving, or just deciding to get your house clutter-free, let me know in the comments! We can share our daily progress and help each other stay motivated. :)