This week on the podcast, we talked about clutter and its tendency to collect in our homes. We had some fun laughs about the reality of our messes, too! I was inspired by our talk and the information provided from my www.Clutterbug.me results. I wanted to share my before and after pictures of my Clutterbug project – my kitchen.

Travis and I still had a box in our kitchen from when we moved almost 10 months ago. I was fed up with looking at that box one day, and unloaded it onto the kitchen island. The idea was to identify what was in the box and then put the items away, but I ran out of time to find a new home for these last straggling items, so they stayed in that spot. Now they were sitting on the catch-all, an already cluttered problem area of my home. 

The clutter got so bad, we could no longer work at the kitchen island, and complacency had become the norm. Each day, one more thing wound up on the island and did not leave. My husband even started leaving the groceries out; instead of putting a can in the pantry while unloading the groceries, the can would find its new home on the island. 

Clutter stacking up on the kitchen island, inside the cabinets, and "the box".

Since the Clutterbug quiz suggested storing things in clear containers, I got these acrylic bins from amazon. Unfortunately, I did not measure my cabinet space (whoops), and the bins are too big for my pantry. I was able to use a few of them around the kitchen, and I will get some smaller ones for the pantry. I can use the remaining large ones in my craft room. 

This week I worked a lot of overtime at work, so I haven’t had as much energy or time to dedicate to my organizing. I did however decide to organize the cups though. The clutter was persistently on my mind after I had mentioned them in an earlier blog. The nice thing about spring cleaning is that it doesn't have to be done all at once. In fact, the best thing to do is one small area or task at a time. There are a few areas that got worked over that I didn’t capture with my camera – mainly the pantry. I tossed out a lot of half eaten cracker sleeves, stale cookies, old protein bars, and random odds and ends that were taking up space. 

I'm happy the way the catch all areas turned out.

For the near future, I have plans to clear out the utensil drawer and utilize the empty cabinet space above the fridge, but I know that it will be little by little. I don’t want to try and do a total overhaul on the kitchen all at once, which would wreck a major working area in our home. Next up after the kitchen will be my dressing table where there are a slew of cosmetics, hair products, earrings, and misc. items strewn about. I am really looking forward to that much needed project.

Have you had a chance to check out the Clutterbug quiz to see what type of Clutterbug you are? I’d love to hear about your style! Maybe you can share some tips in the comments! 

Heard It on the Podcast - March 30, 2022

 

Did you miss a link we mentioned on the podcast? Here's a quick post we'll do every Wednesday to share any links or information from the podcast. We'll also keep a running post on the "Links from the Podcast" tab so you can refer back to any previous episode. Here's the links for this week:

30-MAR-2022

S2E14: What Kind of Clutterbug Are You?

• What Kind of Clutterbug Are You? (Quiz):  https://clutterbug.me
• Totally Tiffany: https://totally-tiffany.com
• Thistle Creative Reuse, Denton, Texas: https://thistlecreativereuse.com

* Please note, as an Amazon Affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

I'm a Clutterbug

This week on the podcast, we are talking about Clutterbugs and the idea that each of us has a different organizational style that can be categorized as one of four different kinds of bugs: the cricket, the bee, the butterfly, and the ladybug. When I took the quiz, it said I was a “Bee”, and when I read the description, I felt like it described me to a “T”. For instance, Bees are generally very organized, but they also like to keep their tools and supplies close by in plain view, and if they are working on a project, they will keep all the supplies out until they are done. The bad side of that is that if the job doesn’t get done right away, Bees tend to make piles of things to put away later, and those piles can be a big, hot mess.

Yes, it really does get this messy sometimes.

Organizing has been an ongoing project of mine for years. I am constantly organizing something, so there’s always some part of my house that’s a total mess. Right now, I feel like my whole house is a total mess! In December and January, we remodeled our living room and dining room. We had to move everything out to the garage so the contractors could rip out our carpet, install hardwood floors, update our baseboards, install crown molding, and paint. And while all that was going on, we were caring for a sick friend and so had also emptied one of our bedrooms to make room for his belongings. That meant I had stacks and boxes all over my house, too.

We had 3 rooms of stuff stored in the garage.

Bees make lots of piles until they're ready to file things.

Some of my displaced craft supplies.

It’s hard to get motivated to put a whole house back together. It’s almost like moving, so I’ve decided to give it a “moving” type of approach. Rather than just bring everything back and put it back where it was, I’ve decided to go through my belongings box by box and decide what to keep and what I can give away or trash. And like moving, I’m being a bit selective about which boxes I open first.  Do I really need to open the box of knick-knacks that was on the top shelf in the hallway closet before I sort through that box of linens? Probably not, so boxes and tasks are done by priority, and that way I can do it a little at a time. Taking on one box or one small task at a time is a lot easier to manage than putting away all of the books or setting up the whole guest bedroom. So that’s what I’ve been doing, tackling one small task at a time whenever I can. It might take me a little longer to get it done, but I’ve already lived with this stuff in my garage for nearly 5 months, so what difference will one more week make?

One of the handy tips I picked up from the Clutterbug website was to stop worrying about finding the “perfect” storage solution. One of the Bee’s traits is to pile things up while trying to find the best way to store them; we also like to wait for better timing to put things away. That is a bad habit of mine that I am trying to break! I have piles and piles of paperwork that I “mean to” do something with, but haven’t. Sometimes the relevance expires before I get it filed or put away. To fix that, I’m using a couple of different techniques that I’ve learned from Totally Tiffany and another that was inspired by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

I’ll start with Tiffany. Tiffany Spaulding launched her company, Totally Tiffany in 2003, and since then, she has been dedicated to producing innovative scrapbooking and craft storage products as well as providing free, no strings attached, virtual classes on getting organized.  I took her online classes about 10 years ago or so when I purchased a “Scrap Rack”, one of her early products. The storage system was awesome, but it was her organization technique that really makes it work. For starters, she broke down and categorized almost all scrapbooking supplies into four simple categories: alpha-numeric, date-specific, themes, and colors. By sorting all of my stuff into those four categories (in that order), I was able to arrange six tubs of stickers and embellishments into one neatly assembled Scrap Rack. Even more importantly, I can quickly find just about any item I might be looking for. Bear stickers…got that! It’s in the “Animal” theme category. Working on a page and need something pink? I can find that, too, because everything pink that doesn’t have a specific category is right there in the pink section.

One tub of craft supplies that I loaded into the Scrap Rack.

More of my craft supplies.

The Scrap Rack with my supplies in it.

I can even apply this technique to other things in my house. My closet uses a similar system, but instead of “themes” and “colors”, my clothes are sorted by type.  Sleeveless shirts here, then short sleeves, then long sleeves, followed by t-shirts. The pants are sorted by length and use: yoga pants, sweats, capris, jeans, dress slacks, and so forth.

Shirts organized in my closet.

Another key point that Tiffany teaches is the “touch it once” principle, which I’ve mentioned in the podcast coming up this week.  I go back to this concept all the time because it just makes so much sense. The idea is that you should never wait to put away new items you bring into your house (or to put away items after you use them). In her example, Tiffany uses ice cream. If you go to the store and you buy ice cream, what do you do with it when you bring it home? You put it away in the freezer – immediately! You don’t set it on the counter while you make dinner, walk the dog, or do a load of laundry. You simply put it away. It takes two seconds and it’s done. That’s what you should do with everything you bring into the house. Bring in the mail, sort it, and put it in its appropriate place: the bills go in the bill file, the correspondence goes in the correspondence file, the junk mail goes in the trash. You should never leave it in a stack somewhere to deal with later. I’ve learned this lesson the hard way more times than I can count. Bills that I thought I paid were found months later at the bottom of a pile. Correspondence was ignored. Opportunities were lost. But by handling things once and only once, to put them in their correct place, documents can be found, bills can be paid, and you won’t accidentally buy the same craft punch twice because you’ll know that you already have one of those.

My last trick to organize comes from President Dwight D. Eisenhower, but it was my daughter Christen who pointed it out to me. Several years ago, she introduced me to the Eisenhower Matrix, which is a very simple time-management method that stems from a quote by President Eisenhower (read the quote here). The basic idea is that you categorize your objectives or tasks by their urgency and importance. It’s a very effective technique for prioritizing tasks, and, as Christen also pointed out, it can be adapted to other sorting methods. She recently used it to prioritize her crafting projects, and that prompted me to use it for prioritizing my household remodeling “recovery”. 

For my restoration projects, I set up the matrix to differentiate the tasks I needed to manage myself versus what my husband could tackle. These were arrayed across the grid so that they were further divided between tasks that could be done by one person versus tasks that would require help. Within each quadrant, I also sorted the items by urgency and whether another task had to be completed first. The final list looked like this:

My remodeling matrix.

I had the good fortune of a friend stopping by to help me unbox books one day this week, and Christen is often quick to offer suggestions or ideas on how and where to store things, so my mess is dwindling. There’s still a lot to do, though; I’m still working on my organization projects, and probably always will be. For me, organizing is always a work in progress, and I don’t think I will ever be completely satisfied with just one method…I just keep adjusting and looking for whatever is “good enough” for now, and when that technique no longer works, I’ll just have to think of something else. 

Be sure to listen to the podcast on Wednesday to hear more about the Clutterbug technique, and join the conversation on our MMC Chat Facebook group!

Download a FREE copy of an Eisenhower Matrix HERE.

Heard it on the Podcast - July 5, 2023

      

Did you miss a link we mentioned on the podcast? Here's a quick post we do most Wednesdays to share any links or information from the podcast. We'll also keep a running post on the "Links from the Podcast" tab so you can refer back to any previous episode. Here's the links for this week:

5-July-2023

S3E27:  Less is More

• Clutter Bug:  https://clutterbug.me
• Our Clutterbug episode:  On Apple Podcasts
• The Minimal Mom:   https://www.theminimalmom.com
• One Little Word:  On AliEdwards.com
• Eckhart Tolle:  On Amazon
• Our Eckhart Tolle Episodes:  YouTube Playlist

And lest we forget, the phrase, "Come hungry, leave happy" is from IHOP -- the International House of Pancakes.

Heard It on the Podcast - March 23, 2022

 

Did you miss a link we mentioned on the podcast? Here's a quick post we'll do every Wednesday to share any links or information from the podcast. We'll also keep a running post on the "Links from the Podcast" tab so you can refer back to any previous episode. Here's the links for this week:

23-MAR-2022

S2E13: Manifesting

• One Little Word by Ali Edwards:  https://aliedwards.com/projects/one-little-word
• Cultivate What Matters and Power Sheets:  https://cultivatewhatmatters.com/pages/about
• Christine Kane:  https://christinekane.com/about/
• The Secret (Book):  https://amzn.to/3sIokef
• The Secret (Movie):  https://amzn.to/3ChRfsL
• M. Night Shaymalan's Signs:  https://amzn.to/3hJ2h0I
• What Kind of Clutterbug Are You? (Quiz):  https://clutterbug.me

* *Please note, as an Amazon Affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

Heard it on the Podcast - July 31, 2024

  

Did you miss a link we mentioned on the podcast? Here's a quick post we do most Wednesdays to share any links or information from the podcast. We'll also keep a running post on the "Links from the Podcast" tab so you can refer back to any previous episode. Here are the links for this week:

31-Jul-2024

S4E31: 7 Secrets to the Perfect Kitchen

Listen to the podcast:   HERE

Mentioned on the podcast:

• Podcast Episode #250 (12/7/22):  7 Secrets of a Perfect Holiday
• My 7 Secrets for a Perfect Holiday:  Blog Post (12/5/22) 
• The Secret is...:  Blog Post (12/9/22)
• Podcast Episode #214 (3/30/22):  What Kind of Clutterbug Are You?
• Heard it on the Podcast (3/30/22)
• I'm a Clutterbug: Blog Post (3/28/22)
• Out with the Old: Blog Post (3/31/22)
• Blog Post (4/2/22)

#makeyourbedchallenge

Hi everyone! I am just going to come right out and say it! I am struggling! I am so behind on what I feel I need to be doing, should be doing and what others expect me to do. I tend to jump into things head first with great intentions and then I suddenly feel like an octopus trying to juggle flaming torches, knives, and hand grenades. I am sure that I am a thousand blogs behind, and let's not talk about the unfinished tasks that I have had to get help on recently. I feel so defeated sometimes. I know that we can all feel this way from time to time, and I know this is a safe place to talk about it. I have a lot of exciting things going on in my life, too, so it can all be an emotional rollercoaster. This blog post has a happy ending, I can assure you that.

Me: feeling overwhelmed!

So, what have I been doing to help with the overwhelming feelings of stress? 

Listening to myself:

I opened a letter that came in the mail recently that was unmarked. I had this gut feeling that it was something terrible. That is probably an automatic response from getting so many bills and unwanted notices in the mail. I hardly ever get good stuff in my mailbox. Well, I started to open this letter, and as I do so, I am paying attention to my feelings. I have been doing a lot of shadow work lately and because of it, I am open to receiving messages from within. The message I heard today was loud and clear. My heart was saying, “My life is falling apart.” In all honesty, yes, I feel wound up and simultaneously over stretched, but surely my life is not falling apart! Part of me wanted to tell myself to not be so overdramatic, but the compassionate part of me reminded me that anything that can come by mail, can be handled. There is nothing that would destroy my family so much that I would truly feel that my life was falling apart. I have to be the voice of reason for myself, as well as comforting and accepting. If you are curious what was in the mail, it was some junk about my husband’s car warranty expiring, nothing worth my day spinning out of control over. 

Doing that one hard thing - and asking for help with it:

I had a daunting task that has been looming over my head for the past year. It has been something that I have been avoiding for various reasons. I start getting those excuses in my head for why I can’t do something or why I should do it later, and sure enough, it starts to sound like a broken record in my head. This is something that I have been working on with my therapist. I tend to associate social discomfort with physical discomfort, and it makes my life very challenging. I end up “punishing myself” because I have a self-limiting belief that I can’t accomplish the task, and then I punish myself for not completing it. This particular task is something that, because I was avoiding it, I didn’t allow myself to enjoy doing other things – that was my punishment. I had to do it though. And yes, there are some things that you don’t have to do, but this was one of those things that just needed to be done. I was tired of not doing it, and I knew that the only way it would get done was if I enlisted someone else's help. Thankfully that person obliged, I didn’t even have to explain myself. I know I will owe them a huge favor. But sometimes you just have to call your friend over to “kill the spider.” Now that this spider has been killed, I am ready to move on to the next one, I no longer feel paralyzed by it. 

Making space to enjoy my life:

I was starting to feel the walls closing in. I’m not really that claustrophobic, but I do start to feel like a bull in a china shop. When I feel like I can’t move around without knocking things over, or having to move-things-to-get-to-other-things-so-I-can do-things, I get really frustrated. I get overwhelmed, panicky, and spin out. I become useless and shut down. I will retreat into a book or television, and the rest of my day is toast. Since I was feeling overwhelmed one day, I decided to watch some videos on YouTube. I thought it might be relaxing to watch some organization videos. Sometimes watching other people clean can be really satisfying. I stumbled across some videos of people decluttering, and I was hooked. I found it so exhilarating to see people hold up a plastic cup from a restaurant and explain that they have 50 cups and they don’t need this one in particular and toss it in the recycle bin. It actually got me pumped. I then started decluttering while I was watching the video. This whole week has been quite refreshing as I have been inspired to do a clean sweep of many of the messy areas in our home that tend to get over-stacked. I went through the pantry and tossed a bunch of expired food. We decluttered the fridge. I ransacked Reyna’s room while she was at her grandpa’s house and threw away a lot of trash, and I even got a donation box with some of her toys and baby books put together. My motivation was even rubbing off on my husband, Travis. He was willing to part ways with some of the unused tumblers and Tupperware that was stuffed in all the nooks and crannies. Some of the most inspiring videos were from Cassandra Aarssen from Clutterbug. We blogged about what type of Clutterbug we were and discussed the quiz on the podcast last year. I was really planning to do my spring cleaning in the spring, but this year I just couldn’t wait to get started. I started out in the game closet and ever since I dumped out an entire box of hard playdough without a second thought, I have been a changed woman. I find myself decluttering everywhere I go in the house. I even decluttered my sewing case while I was at a retreat this weekend. I dumped a handful of miscellaneous buttons in the trash that I have been toting around with me for 20+ years, and it was so freeing! Another great vlogger that I want to share is The Minimal Mom - The Myth of Being Behind. This particular video reminds us that we are not behind, we are doing what we are capable of doing at the time. In the world of Pinterest perfectionism we need to be reminded that we are normal and it’s ok. 

I am feeling better about my situation in life. It is not actually spinning out of control, that’s just a mindset. Life is a work in progress. And, for real, if you read this far, I really appreciate it! There is just something so powerful about putting my words out there, speaking my truth, and hashing it out. I feel so much better now than I did 45 minutes ago. 

I encourage you to check out our podcast coming out on Wednesday. Motivation and life hacks are abundant. This week we are talking about the “Make Your Bed Challenge”. I don’t know if that is a real thing or not but we made it a challenge. Starting March 1st we are challenging ourselves and our listeners and readers to do the challenge with us! This is a productivity challenge. We go into detail behind the reasoning as to why it is important to start your day off by making your bed every day. So if you feel like your life is spinning out of control or you need a little more regimentation and order in your life, Wednesday’s podcast is for you. So start your day off by making the bed, and remember that intention is better than perfection. 

If you participate in our "Make Your Bed Every Day" Challenge, be sure to tag us on your Facebook and Instagram posts:  @ModernMusingsMMC and #mmcmakeyouredchallenge

Heard it on the Podcast - May 10, 2023

     

Did you miss a link we mentioned on the podcast? Here's a quick post we do most Wednesdays to share any links or information from the podcast. We'll also keep a running post on the "Links from the Podcast" tab so you can refer back to any previous episode. Here's the links for this week:

10-May-2023

S3E19: Did This Internet Hack Work?

• Christmas Card Fail: Pinterest
• Birthday Cake:
• TikTok Enchiladas:
• Pizza Dip: Pinterest
• Mississippi Pot Roast: Facebook
• Pumpkin M&M Cake Fail:
• Clutterbug:
• Inspiration for Christen's Wedding:  Pinterest
• Christen's Wedding Crafts: Pinterest 

Heard it on the Podcast - August 17, 2022

 

 

Did you miss a link we mentioned on the podcast? Here's a quick post we'll do every Wednesday to share any links or information from the podcast. We'll also keep a running post on the "Links from the Podcast" tab so you can refer back to any previous episode. Here's the links for this week:

17-AUG-2022

S2E34: Looking Back: 50 Episodes

Here's a list of shortcuts to some of our favorite and most memorable episodes. 

• December Daily: Our first episode! Listen
• Smart Goals:  Listen
• What Kind of Clutterbug Are You? Listen
• What's on Your Cleaning Checklist? Listen
• Celebrity Hall Pass:  Listen
• Grief and Loss During the Holidays: Listen
• Give a Little Love:  Listen
• Thoughts on Cups:  Listen

And here are a few other things we mentioned in this episode:

• Goals Girl: Enjoy the whole series.
• Light Work: Happiness.com
• Shadow Work: Healthline
• Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Enjoy the whole series.