If you wait for perfekt conditions, you’ll never get anything done.

Eccles. 11:4 (NLT)

How to de-clutter a very nasty room….any nasty room.

Put on an apron and a comfortable outfit.

If you don’t have an apron, it’s ok. Clean anyway.

Get these four containers for things :

• hamper: for dirty clothes
• clothes basket: for clean clothes
• trashcan: for trash
• cardboard box: for clutter

If you don’t have four containers, it’s ok. Clean anyway.

clutter: anything that is not where it belongs, including things that don’t have a home yet.

This is VERY important. Never leave the room until you are finished. That’s what the four containers will be used for. To keep you from having to leave the room to put away the clutter.

If you like, put on some good music. Carmen, or Stephen Hill. Bluegrass is pretty uplifting. Videos WILL distract you so CDs are preferable.

If you don’t have any music, it’s ok. Clean anyway.

Clean the largest horizontal surface in the room: In the bedroom, this will probably be the bed. In the dining room, it will probably be the table. In the living room, it could be the couch or a big coffee table.

Do this by putting anything ON it in one of the four containers. Do NOT leave the room.

Then you are going to go around the room clockwise, throwing everything that is out of place in one of those four containers. QUICKLY now. If you come across something that belongs in this room, just leave it for now. Really. We’ll get back to it.

Now take the trash and put the container back where it lives in your house. Empty the bag and replace the liner if you need to.

Now put the hamper of dirty laundry in the laundry room or where ever it lives at your house.

Now put the clean clothes away. Fold, hang. Hopefully, this will NOT take all day. If it is too much to do quickly, leave it for last.

Now put away everything in the cardboard clutter box that you KNOW where its home is. At our house, shoes go by the back door, toys go in the toy box, school supplies and books go in a school supply and book box on a shelf in the living room.

Now. Look at what you have left in the clutter box.

Is it worth it to pick this stuff up? Could you just throw it away and still wake up happy tomorrow?

 If it’s really important, give it a home now even if it’s a temporary home in a cardboard box under a bed.

If not, why doesn’t it have a home in your house already?

Funny Story: My sister once watched me sweep stuff into a pile in my living room. Then as I stooped to pick up some stuff out of the pile to put it away (mostly broken Happy Meal toys and orphaned game pieces), she took the broom from my hand, swept everything into a dustpan and poured the entire contents into the trash can. I stared at her in complete shock. “If they don’t care enough to put it away, why should you?, ” she beamed back at me.

Wow… such wisdom. And she’s my little sister!

Here’s an idea:

Make a folder on your desktop computer and put in it a document- word or even just notepad which is on every Windows computer called House Locater. Now just type in word pairs like : cute socks from junior’s second birthday party fourteen years ago that i can’t live without : cardboard box on tallest shelf in hall closet. If that takes too long, put junior socks hall closet box.

Now you can use the find feature on your computer to locate junior’s socks when he gets married and you want to pass them on… tuh dah!

Assistant de-Clutterer today was Sandy Ashley.