5 Tips for Keeping the Clutter at Bay

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Inside: 5 Tips to help you keep your surfaces clean, and your stress level down. I’m sharing how to tackle the clutter and reset your mindset at the same time.

A messy house can be very stressful. When you have stuff piled up on your table or you kitchen counters or your furniture, it truly affects your mental state.

At least, it does mine!

It can feel overwhelming and daunting. I totally understand.

But I’m here to help you start to make sense of it and find a way, a low-stress, encouraging and compassionate way to deal with it.

Below, you’ll find my very personal tips, things that I do, to help keep the junk from overtaking our precious home!

I hope they help and encourage you to start your own journey to being “clutter free”!

1. Find your “Clutter Magnets”

There are very specific areas in my home that seem to attract the stuff. It’s like there’s an unseen Junk Magnet that pulls the paper and mail and various and such sundries to it!

Find where your home seems to attract your clutter. For me, it’s the entryway, the entryway cabinet area, and the kitchen table.

Awareness is the very first step toward keeping the clutter out! Find yours and you are on your way to a clutter free home.

In the video below, you can see what a big difference a quick pick up of my clutter magnets makes!

2. Set a specific time to love on your Magnet Areas!

I’m an Enneagram 9, and we love routing. I eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch pretty much everyday… except today where I actually ate a whole pint of Enlightenment Peanut Butter and Cookie Dough Ice Cream. Soooooo good…

So, it’s the same with my decluttering my clutter magnets. I take a few minutes every afternoon to check on them and put things away! Which leads me to my next tip…

3. Check on them EVERYDAY.

I know, I know. That seems like over kill. But if you every heard me talk about cleaning, you’ve heard me say:

It’s easier to clean a clean home.

And it is. Checking on them every.single.day. keeps them from overwhelming your surfaces. Otherwise, left unchecked, they can become a mountainous pile of unwanted borderline hoarder status.

And noooobody wants that.

4. Get very good at letting go.

This one might be easier said than done. Got graduation pictures from friends? Receipts? Junk Mail? Coupon flyers?

Practice making quick decisions about what is trash and what is a keeper.

I’ve gotten so good at it, at not being attached to stuff, that I can literally make very quick decisions about what needs to be dumped or saved.

I’m sentimental to a very limited point. Yet, I’m not a robot.

But It’s all just stuff anyway and when I’m gone, my boys will have to make these decisions and I want them to have a very easy time of it. The less stuff I leave around, the less they’ll have to contend with. And isn’t that really blessing them?

Yes. Yes, it is.

5. Reset your mindset.

My last tip is probably THE MOST IMPORTANT AND HELPFUL.

If you struggle with any of the above, really look at your thoughts. I have some great resources to help you do that.

First, you can download my free eBook of Cleaning Affirmations.

What you tell yourself about clutter and cleaning will be vital to your ability to achieve your clutter-free goals!

Next, listen to a few of my podcast episodes.

You’ll find these on my sister site, where I share my art and mindset stips, GwendolynStantonWhitfield.com.

• #4: The Life-Changing Practice of Arguing with Yourself
• #6: The Power of Parenting Yourself
• #7: Harnessing the Chatter
• #9: How to Create a Cleaning Schedule that Works for You!
• #11: Creating Tiny Habits for the Win
• #27: Three Quick but POWERFUL Ways to Motivate Yourself!
• #32: Do Your Thoughts Pass the Test?

Take some time to reset your mindset. It doesn’t happen overnight. If fact, I’m continually checking my thoughts and learning more techniques to get better at it. I’m sharing them on my podcast every week, so pop over and subscribe for updates and be a part of this exciting journey with me!

Bonus Tip: Have a metric ton of self-compassion.

You are busy. You have stuff going on. You are human. You get tired. You have feelings. You have so many other imporatn things you want to focus on.

It’s OK. It’s OK that you are not perfect and that your home isn’t perfect. Tell yourself that often.

Tell yourself things like:

• I am trying.
• I am working on it.
• I want to be better at it and I’ll keep showing up for myself.
• I will take this one day at a time and do what I can.

When I started being super kind to myself, that’s when my inner life, and as a result, my outer life, started to change. When you beat yourself up for having a messy home, your defeating yourself before you ever begin.

Be you own cheerleader. Go stand in front of the mirror and encourage yourself!

It may feel wierdo at first but it helps. It helps SO MUCH!

Take it slow and keep going!

xoxo

Gwen