Step #38: Maintain

Now that you’ve created a vision of how you’d like your home to function and appear and used it to organize your household, the most crucial element in your success is how well you can stick to your plan.

• The 15-Minute Clean-Up
Have your entire family spend fifteen minutes picking up odds and ends around the house that accumulate during the day (sorting mail, putting away newspapers, picking up clothes, etc.). Set a designated time of the day to do it, such as after dinner or before bed, and make it a habit.

• Question the Need to Buy New Things
When you discover the exhilaration that freeing yourself of clutter brings, it will inspire you to rethink your relationships with material things. When you put the effort into creating a clean, open environment, you will be motivated to keep it that way, and that includes resisting buying more things to detract from your new clutter-free space.

• The Monthly Purge
Things tend to pile up your home rather quickly. Don’t wait to do a yearly purge – do it on a continual basis. It can help to always have a “donate” box somewhere in your home and add to it on an ongoing basis. If you bring a few new articles of clothing into your home, put a few into the giveaway box.

• Re-evaluate
Successful families recognize that as they grow and their goals evolve, so do their needs. Several times throughout the year, re-evaluate the systems you have in place to organize your family. If they’re not working for you, try something else.

COMING NEXT: Get ready, get set... another spending freeze!

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This is the step I seam to have the worst time with no matter what I do the clutter creeps back

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Kimberly Proud Mommy to Bethany Rose April 2006 &

Organizer of the Coupon Clippers of Tacoma

I find that having that donation box/bin/bag at the ready all the time makes it much easier to declutter on a regular basis.

Maintaining is very hard for me. My desk was looking very nice and clutter-free...its piled up again. This is a constant struggle.

I'm definitely looking at bringing new things into the house in a new light though. I'm so much more aware of the problem with finding places for the new things and maintaining them once their here.

These are great ideas, Kim! I definatley have to work towards maintaining! I see already since we got back from vacation - my linen closet already needs a tidy so that it does not go back to original form!!!

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"I want my children to have all the things I couldn't afford. Then I want to move in with them." ~ Phyllis Diller

I am going through give it a purge again this week since the school is having a garage sale. It seems that once you get a free space and start enjoying it, at least for me I am finding things I can live without for more space.

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A Family of 5's quest to forget the Joneses.