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Master the chaos by the door
Create a “landing zone” by the exterior door you use the most, whether that’s the front, kitchen or garage door. Use it to hold all the things you put down as you come in the door (keys, wallet, purse, car door opener… ) and the stuff waiting to go out next time you go (library books, video rentals, dry cleaning, thrift store donations…).
Size and type depends on your family and lifestyle: it could be anything from a single shelf to a set of cubbies, hooks, bins and shelves for each family member.
Security tip: make sure keys and wallet are not visible or reachable through a window or mail slot.
There’s a great article on this subject in the Jan 2007 issue of Fine Homebuilding magazine, which you can probably find at your local library (unfortunately this particular article is not online). “The Drop-Off Zone” on page 122 covers building several kinds of landing zones, especially oriented to households with lots of electronic devices which need homes and recharging areas.
Home Design for Reduced Maintenance
If you design for low maintenance from the beginning, or spend time making a few changes designed for low maintenance, you can reduce your regular chores for years into the future, a great way to get a really huge time-savings payback!
Reduce the amount of mess and dirt coming into the house
This is your first line of defense. Mats should be placed outside and inside all doors. The kind of mats you want are the ones which really remove dirt from shoes, not the kind which are decorative only. If your family tends to have REALLY muddy shoes and boots, a bootscraper outside the door is an old-fashioned item which still works well.
To cut down on airborne dirt, seal and caulk all gaps round windows and doors and other building penetrations like pipes and wires. This will help with heating and cooling bills too. If you need to in your area, use insect screens on your windows and doors.
Inside, corral the mess and limit its spread
Assuming you do actually want to LIVE in this house, not just exist, it’s impossible not to create any mess at all – but you can take steps to make it easier to clean up.
Do mess-creating activities in one specific area, preferably with a closable door. If you’re doing something that makes dust, shavings, fumes etc, close the door to keep them out of the rest of the house. Make sure to clean your filters frequently if you have a forced-air heating or cooling system, to stop dust and dirt being spread around the house.
Simplify everything:
- create built-in seating and storage (no spaces underneath or behind to clean)
- reduce the number of decorative objects and twiddly bits
- keep window coverings to the fewest, simplest number of layers that will do the job
- limit open display to only those objects you really love, and keep everything else behind closed doors
- reduce the amount of stuff you own (declutter!)
Choose easy-to-maintain finishes:
- brushed plumbing fitting finishes instead of shiny.
- easily-cleaned paint finishes (usually gloss, satin or eggshell rather than flat)
- hard floors with few joints (avoid the hardwood or laminate floors with chamfered groove joints between every plank!)
- wall-to-wall carpets instead of area rugs
- smooth kitchen finishes instead of textured
Resource List
Get Organized and Stay Organized
Garage Storage Systems
Home Organization Tools
Kitchen Organization
Pantry Organizers and Shelving
Making best use of your calendar
- Keep one main central calendar for the whole family, where everyone can see it and write on it. Each person can have their own personal calendar too, of course, but EVERYTHING should go on the central calendar as soon as someone knows about it.
- Only time-dependent activities and tasks should go on your calendar. If it’s something that could be done on any day, put it on a to-do or action list, not on the calendar. Why not? Because a mixture of time-critical and non-time-critical tasks on a calendar day obscures the tasks which HAVE TO be done that day.
- At the end of the week, look back on your calendar and what you did during the week, and consider any activities or tasks which may have arisen which haven’t yet been written down. Record them now!
- Look ahead to the calendar entries for next week. What do you need to do beforehand to prepare? Those need to get written down too!
Recommended Resources
DIY Planner: printable planner and calendar pages in multiple sizes and layouts. PDF format files can be read by any computer.
Clutter-Free Forever e-book by Stephanie Roberts
Books, books and more books
No matter how much you love books, eventually you’ll have too many (unless you plan to move them into their own house and found a library!).
Good places to donate books are: your local library (make sure they can use them), shelters, schools, daycare programs, literacy programs, hospitals, hostels, and of course used book stores.
Ways to accumulate fewer books: use the library (including inter-library loan if your local library doesn’t have what you want), trade books with friends, create a special interest library for club members, institute a “one in, one out” rule.
Handling bills and receipts
Some kind of a system and routine is essential to keep our financial lives under control and the bills paid on time.
First, what happens when bills, receipts and other financial items arrive in your house? Have a specific place to put them all, every time: I keep a dedicated in-box (actually a cardboard tray!) and drop bank statements, bills, receipts, etc straight into it. If you receive bills and statements online, you may want a dedicated folder in your email system to collect them all.
Then, create a routine for dealing with them, whether weekly, monthly or at some other time interval.
Once you’ve dealt with them, have a place to store them, whether it’s a file system or shoebox. Whatever it is, just be consistent and you’ll be able to find things when you need them.
Get Things Out of Your Head
Your brain is not a good place to store things. The more things you try to remember, the more stress builds up.
Have a place to record things: planner, index cards, voice recorder, PDA or computer. Have a way to get things you’ve recorded, into your system: use an inbox of some kind. Use routines or checklists for regular or repeated tasks. Have a daily or weekly routine for gathering up stray papers, getting them into the right inbox, and processing them.
Keep lists: “To buy”, “To mend”, “waiting for” (delegated tasks, orders not yet received, stuff you’re waiting for answers on), “someday” (things you’d like to do and don’t want to forget, but not just yet), and “agendas” (things you need to remember to talk about or do with individual people and at meetings).
Recommended resources
Book: David Allen “Getting Things Done”
I’ve read many, many “organizing” books over decades and this is the one which has made the most difference for me. It is eminently practical, detailed and straightforward. It doesn’t require you to buy any specific tools: you can use anything from a paper notebook, planner, or index cards to a PDA or computer.
Main strengths are in processes to capture, record, plan and organize tasks and projects. Not so strong on how to actually get yourself to DO all those tasks!
Craft and Hobby Clutter
If you have a hobby that uses materials, you probably have a “stash”. If your hobby involves equipment, you may have older models or versions. These are prime candidates for decluttering.
Ask yourself:
- will I ever use this again?
- Does it still meet safety or environmental standards?
- Is it still in fashion or totally dated?
- Is the quality up to what I now use?
- Do I still have the tools needed to use or maintain it?
- Is it worth more to someone else than it is to me?
- Has it degraded in storage?
- Could I use the money I’d get by selling it, or the space it’s occupying, better for something else?
- Would it be easy to replace if I ever needed it again?
You may also have information resources for your hobby – books, magazines, videos, CDs etc. More questions:
- Do I have the technology to use/read/play this?
- Is the information still relevant, or outdated?
- Are my skills now well beyond this level?
- Am I still interested in this facet of the hobby?
- Can I find this information elsewhere?
Decluttering your hobby or craft “stuff” can free up space, energy, time or money to actually DO the thing you want to do!
Master the chaos by the door
Create a “landing zone” by the exterior door you use the most, whether that’s the front, kitchen or garage door. Use it to hold all the things you put down as you come in the door (keys, wallet, purse, car door opener…) and the stuff waiting to go out next time you go (library books, video rentals, dry cleaning, thrift store donations…).
Size and type depends on your family and lifestyle: it could be anything from a single shelf to a set of cubbies, hooks, bins and shelves for each family member.
Security tip: make sure keys and wallet are not visible or reachable through a window or mail slot.