Getting Organised with Flylady and Peter Walsh

Over the past couple of weeks our house has become organisation central. I have joined flylady, have read Peter Walsh's book "It's All Too Much" and have taken action!!! I have been busy establishing new morning and evening routines and have decluttered every nook and cranny of our house and sheds. I know my friends who are reading this will probably ask what on earth I have found to declutter (I am renowned for being an organiser and minimalist), but let me tell you I have found plenty of clutter. I am loving our new clutter-free lifestyle and am truly understanding why Peter Walsh says "A home is the beginning of every day. Changing it changes your life". It is so cleansing to free yourself of clutter and to be reminded of what you really value in your life.

I really like flylady.com as the daily emails keep me on track. If you join be sure to click daily digest as she sends lot's of emails through. I don't shine my sink (it was sending the perfectionist in me a little crazy) and I don't follow the zone cleaning as I do a full and thorough clean each week anyway. I do follow the flylady daily routines though and have found them extremely helpful at reducing the stress in our days. Some of the best routines I have implemented into our daily lives include:

* Laying out our clothes, accessories, shoes, school bags etc in the evening for the following day. Even if we are having a home day, this still gets us off on the right foot.

* Placing a load of washing into the machine every evening, ready to start first thing in the morning. That way I can get it out on the clothesline before we head out each morning.

* Decluttering a hot spot each evening for several minutes before bed (a hot spot is an area of your home where clutter gathers). My hotspot is a little pile of papers that sit on our kitchen bench (bills, school notes etc).

* Getting completely dressed (including hair and make-up) first thing in the morning after my shower. Flylady says you have to put your shoes on first thing too, but I just can't do shoes inside.

* Decluttering one area for 15 minutes per day. This has made a huge difference to our lives!!! Initially I started with really obvious places like the top of the fridge and inside the computer cupboard, but I then moved on to other less obvious areas. My make-up bag has been cleaned out and now only contains my favourites. My digital photos are saved into files, backed-up on my external hard drive and my camera card is now empty. My pantry is clean, organised and only contains food that is in date and that I will actually use. My email inbox is empty as important emails have been saved in labelled files and junk emails have been discarded. My sewing and knitting boxes have been cleaned and excess fabric and wool has been sent to charity shops. My wardrobe now only contains clothes that I really like, that fit me well and that are ironed ready to wear. My car is now spotless and is completely unloaded every time we go anywhere. You get the drift.

I also really loved reading "It's All Too Much" and am so envious of Peter Walsh. He is living my dream. I do love teaching but if I could do any job in the world I would definitely want to be a professional organiser. Peter Walsh goes beyond just organising though and says you just have to get rid of your excess stuff (not simply organise your rubbish in a nifty storage system). He really goes beyond the flylady when it comes to decluttering and provides excellent strategies for getting rid of clutter (even sentimental clutter which is so hard to part with). Here are some of my favourite strategies:

"When it comes to handbags, I'm going to give you a choice. If you don't use your handbags, you must pare down the collection to fit the space. And if you have room for a prized handbag collection, you must justify it by emptying your purse every night - the way men empty their back pockets - to keep your purse contents spare and easily transferable".

"There's no such thing as artist block in preschool or kindergarten, or even primary school for that matter. Say your child paints at least one masterpiece a day. At three hundred works in a year, your child is more prolific than Picasso.....The answer is to make it a ceremony, not a purge. File flat art in a portfolio. At the end of each term, tell your child it's time to pick the best of the best. Sort through the art and pick one piece to frame and three or four to keep for posterity. The rest can be photographed and discarded."

The one-month cardboard box test
"Not sure what you use and what you don't. Here is a tried and true way to find out. Empty the contexts of your kitchen utensil drawers into a cardboard box. For one month, only put a utensil back in the drawer if you take it out of the box to use it. At the end of the month seriously consider discarding everything that's still in the cardboard box."

My Hubby has been getting into the spirit too and has been decluttering his wardrobe and shed. On the weekend I decided to give him a helping hand and I laid his precious baseball caps out on the bed (a strategy Peter Walsh uses for shoes). I laid out 15 caps as I didn't find the other 3 in his golf bag until later. When he entered the bedroom (and recovered from the initial shock of seeing the caps all laid out) I asked him how many caps he thought he needed and how many he would really wear. By laying them all out he could clearly see how many he had in each colour and which caps were in the best condition. We got it down from 18 to 7! I have had similar results with the boys and their toys.

I really would recommend both the flylady and Peter Walsh's book "It's all too much". Perhaps do what I did though and instead of buying the book, just borrow it from the library. That way it won't clutter up your bookshelf!!! :-)