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Jan 07

Time to de-clutter…wait! What’s that over there?!

I find that I’m having a hard time finding time to de-clutter.  Sometimes there’s a good reason for that.  For example, last night my hubby and I went out to dinner and then took our little one to the final night of Winter Wonderland.  Tonight I’m writing my blog, playing on Facebook, anything to keep from doing any actual housework.  Soon we’ll eat dinner, maybe after that I’ll get my second wind. But maybe not.

What happened?  I was doing so well.  My routine was interrupted and now I just can’t get back into the rhythm.  I need something to light a fire under me again.  In the past it’s been some area of the house being hopelessly cluttered, but thanks to the work I’ve put into it there are no areas of the house give me that feeling.  Am I really going to sit around allowing my house to be swallowed by my stuff?  Is today the day that laziness wins?  I hope not, but I just can’t seem to get motivated.  I would much rather sit here and do nothing.  I need purpose, but I don’t really want it.

I think part of the problem is that I don’t have a clear direction in which to go.  I know that a byproduct of de-cluttering is that my house stays cleaner, so I really don’t want to give in to the nothingness.  So far I’ve simply been picking an area to tackle and taking care of that, but there are fewer and fewer obvious areas of need.  There are still areas in every room that need attention, but nothing glaring, so it’s harder for me to just come home and tackle a project.  I think I’m going to have to start making a list.  I am a list person after all.  I think I’ll work on that tonight after dinner.  I’ll list all the places in the house that need to be de-cluttered and just start tackling them one at a time, 15 minutes at a time, so that I don’t burn myself out anymore than I already have.  I’m hoping that the list method will get me back into the swing of things.

What are some of the ways that you motivate yourself when all you want to do is nothing?  I’m open to ideas.

 

  • Andrea

    I have the opposite problem. My house is so bad I don’t know where to begin. :)

    • admin

      I had that same problem when I first started de-cluttering. The trick is to start with something really small. I started with my medicine cabinet, then the basket on the counter, then the kitchen table. The more little jobs I conquered the more confidence I had to move on to the bigger jobs.

  • Dad

    As you know, my commitment was to read for 40 minutes each morning. Often, because I got up late or for whatever reason I didn’t have that much time before I had to leave for work, but I spent as much time as I had; very frequently that was more like fifteen minutes. But if all I had was five minutes, I read for five minutes. So, I suggest you do five minutes when you can’t do fifteen.