Do you find yourself fighting about stuff with your partner or children (no matter how old)? I mean stuff as in personal belongings. The tangible stuff that takes up physical space in your house! I can remember having so many arguments over our stuff! I hated the obstacle courses of stuff! I hated stepping over things, squeezing through spaces, having bins and shelves full of I ‘don’t even know what’.

I legit hated ALL of our stuff!!

It was simply taking up too much space because we had WAY too much! We sometimes couldn’t safely walk down our basement stairs. We couldn’t walk through some wide open areas because it was so jam packed!

On top of fighting about stuff, we also fought about where to find stuff or maybe more so, blaming each other for who moved the stuff! “I had this right here….” *ahem – under this enormous pile of stuff – “how could it have vanished from here!?”

I hated the time I wasted looking for stuff!

Where’s that important school paper? Where’s my toy? Did you have the keys last? I left my pen right here, who took it? The fights went on and on, and time was wasted running around looking for random things! If everything just had a home of it’s own I wouldn’t need to waste any time looking for it or remembering where I put it last. Even the kids randomly walked around aimlessly looking for their stuff. It’s totally beside the point that most of the time when they look around for their things, I am sure they are just hoping it will jump out at their face because of the way they practically step on the thing they are looking for while stating they can’t find it – but that is a different lesson for them to learn!

I hated cleaning!

I was sick of tidying the whole house just to vacuum! I was tired of tidying off the counter just to be able to wipe it clean. I hated moving tiny things from the window ledge to be able to clean the windows! Each of the cleaning tasks doesn’t actually take that long, unless you have lots of stuff to move first! It’s not the cleaning that I hated (I actually love cleaning and having a clean house!!), but it was the amount of work and time I had to put in before I could even START cleaning!!

I couldn’t help by smile when I found this amazing sign at a local thrift store!

I HAD to have it! (though I did consider just making it myself). For the 5$, I thought it was worth it because I totally agree. I am not a minimalist by any means. I love stuff for the most part and I enjoy getting stuff. But I definitely have a very strong desire to get rid of it all and organize it just because I hated that it took up so much of my time, both mentally and physically!

So free your mind, stop wasting your time, and find fun in cleaning again! Get rid of your stuff! It’s like marriage/family counseling! The good, the bad, AND the ugly!!

Here’s a quick family decluttering challenge:
Use the weekend! Yes! That means just two days!!! Everyone in the household has to pick one category of items they have a lot of. Each person has to try as hard as they can to cut that pile of items in HALF!!! It’s easiest for each person to gather all their items together and sort through the pile. Grab a donate bag for each person, or take pictures of the stuff to sell online, but whatever you do, cut the pile in half!

Thanks for coming home!