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Selling Your Family on Decluttering

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Benefits of Decluttering

(Post Updated February 2020)

Last night I was reading the book “The One Minute Sales Person” by Spencer Johnson. It says the best way to sell anything is to help the person get what they want from the product, idea, or service.

So what does this have to do with decluttering and organizing? Actually plenty!  When it comes to decluttering, we not only have to “sell” ourselves on the idea, we also have to “sell” our family members on it.

We can work on keeping our own things cleaned up. However, if our spouses and/or children leave things laying around we’ll become frustrated and discouraged.  Begging them to help usually doesn’t work in the long run.

 

Selling the Benefits

We have to figure out how to convince them that decluttering and organizing helps everyone in the household. That is where the “selling” comes in. They need to know how they will benefit from getting rid of the old things and organizing what is left.

The specific benefits may different for each person but here are some basic benefits of decluttering and organizing that applies to all of us.

  1. Fewer things laying around (toys, electronics, etc.) makes it easier to find and put away the ones we really use and enjoy.
  2. Putting dirty clothes in the proper designated place makes it easier to keep the laundry up. That means they will have clean clothes when they need them.
  3. Putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher or washing them by hand instead of leaving them all around will allow you to use clean dishes instead of paper ones. That’s better for the environment and today’s children are learning to take pride in protecting the environment for their own future.
  4. Keeping track of how much money is spent on “things” and if they are “wants” or “needs” will help save money and keep the clutter from building up around the house. I call this conscious buying and it benefits everyone.

More Ideas to Help

I looked through some old blog posts and found ones that may help inspire you to find the benefits for you and your family.

Wants vs Needs
Mindfulness in the Home 
Things Can Be Freeloaders
Time To Get Off Autopilot
Mistakes As Clutter 

 

How do you “sell” yourself and/or your family members on the benefits of decluttering and organizing? Please let me know by leaving a comment so I can share these ideas with all my readers. Thanks.

 

To a lighter load along the way.
Janice Scissors

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Organizing With Project Worksheets

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I have found over the years that if I plan out a project on paper I have a much higher success rate in completing it. To make it easy for myself I would design a worksheet and make copies of it for each new project.

Over the years I have designed more specific worksheets for different kinds of projects. I have converted these into PDF’s and loaded them to my server. You can download these free worksheets and print them out. If you have any questions about them please ask me in the comment section.

Paperwork Project Worksheet

Household or Craft Project Worksheet

Weekend Projects Worksheet

Janice

https://cutclutterwithscissors.com

http://twitter.com/jlscissors

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Everyday Is Earth Day

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Yesterday was the official Earth Day. Because it was during the week many celebrations are taking place this weekend. I’m fortunate that my city (a suburb of St. Louis) has a large event that includes recycling of electronics, athletic shoes, and even shredding of paper documents. There also is a large event taking place for the whole metropolitan area plus many other individual suburbs. I googled my city and some surrounding areas to find out the details. Try googling your city so you can take advantage of these once a year events.

Earth Day was designed to remind us at least once a year of how important it is to be considerate of the home (earth) we all share. However, we should think this way everyday of the year. After all, we want our individual homes to be clean and uncluttered, why not the larger home we all share.

There are many things each of us can do that will add up to making a big difference in the long run. In the process you might save money, create a healthier environment for you family, and simplify your life. I think those are good reasons to make some little changes.

Things I have done:

  1. Switched to compact fluorescent light bulbs where I can.
  2. Use fewer harsh chemicals for cleaning. Vinegar, baking soda, shampoo/soap, and elbow grease are safer and less expensive.
  3. Use very few harsh chemicals for landscaping. My vegetable garden is organic.
  4. Recycle as much as I can with curb side recycling plus special events. I also recycle a lot of my food scraps and yard waste in a compost pile.
  5. I use reusable water bottles around the house. I still use plastic water bottles (recycled when empty) when my husband and I take our dog for walks at a park. I’m can’t decide what kind of reusable bottle I want to buy that will be easy and light weight to carry while walking. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

These are some of the changes I have made so far. They didn’t happen all a once but a few at a time. To some people it may seem like I am doing a lot of things to be “green” while to others may think it’s barely a grain of sand.

It doesn’t matter how few things we are doing now. What’s important is to slowly keep changing our habits so we can clean and declutter our homes and the earth. Those grains of sand add up to a whole shore line.

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“To see a world in a grain of sand
and heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
and eternity in an hour.”
William Blake

If you have children then this site below has lots of information and fun things to do regarding Earth Day and everyday. The more the next generation learns about the earth the better they will care for it when they grow up.

http://www.planetpals.com/pp_magazine22.html

To a lighter load along the way.

Janice

Cut Clutter With Scissors Facebook Page

http://twitter.com/jlscissors

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Household Administrative Professionals Day?

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In the work environment most bosses have some kind of assistant or secretary. Today is the official day that they are suppose to recognize how much that person helps the boss. If you are the boss and have someone assisting you then let them know how much you appreciate their help.

But if you are not the boss or even if you do not work in an office take this day to think about all the people who help you with your administrative responsibilities. This doesn’t have to be just work related. There are administrative responsibilities in running every home.

Who pays the bills? Who schedules the doctor’s appointments or calls the plumber when needed? Who takes care of the taxes or at least gathers the papers needed for the accountant? Who files important papers in the file drawer so they can be found when needed? The list goes on and on.

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In my household I take care of most of the administrative duties. So today I’m going to pat myself on the back. Who knows, maybe when I go out later I’ll buy myself some fresh flowers!

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Here are a couple of sites to check out about Administrative Professionals Day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Professionals%27_Day

http://www.iaap-hq.org/newsroom/apw/index.html

Janice

https://cutclutterwithscissors.com

http://twitter.com/jlscissors Be sure to follow me on Twitter for my almost daily Cut Clutter Tips.

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“Things” Can Be Freeloaders

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How do you look at your things? Are they valuable to you? Are they clutter to you? Do you wonder where all those things came from?

Most of the time clutter accumulates without us paying much attention to it. Then one day we look around and feel overwhelmed. Our things have taken over our homes! Now we start beating ourselves up wondering how we let this happen.

One reason is because we were too nice to our things. Yes, I said too nice. We have let these things take up residence in our homes even though many don’t deserve to be there. They are freeloaders!

Webster’s definition for freeloader is:  a person who habitually imposes on others for free food, lodging, etc.

If we look at our things from this angle how many of them could be considered freeloaders? They are living in your home for free if they don’t serve any purpose to make your life better.

To determine if something has earned the right to live in your home ask yourself these questions.

  • Does the item serve a practical function?
  • Does the item make you smile?
  • Does the item bring up good memories?
  • Does the item pamper you?
  • Does the item make a family member happy therefore making you happy?

Something may be a freeloader because:

  • You feel obligated to keep it because someone gave it to you. It doesn’t matter that you hate it or it doesn’t go with anything in your home.
  • It belongs to someone else but you feel too guilty to get rid of it or insist the owner take it back.
  • You bought something but realize it was a mistake. It’s too late to return it so you feel too guilty to get rid of it and waste all that money.
  • You don’t want to contribute to the landfill so you plan to recycle it. You just haven’t gotten around to finding a place to take it.
  • It no longer fits but it’s too good to get rid of. Maybe you’ll lose the weight someday.

There are all kinds of excuses that allows us to let the freeloaders take up residence in our homes. Don’t buy into those excuses. Kick those freeloaders to the curb!

Janice

 

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