Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Rule #6 Set limits for yourself and others

lim·it  noun
1. a point or level beyond which something does not or may not extend or pass.
  1. 2. a restriction on the size or amount of something permissible or possible.
Why is setting limits such an important part of managing stuff?

Ummmmm...because we have TOO MUCH OF IT!

What exactly do I mean when I say "set limits?"  Let me show you in the form of a common problem at our house (and maybe yours)....toys.

Take a pile of Barbie dolls. 
Did you know, back in the day (said in an annoying old person voice) when I was a little girl no one had more than ONE barbie doll. My parents weren't rich but we weren't wanting for anything either. When I was a girl (which was not that long ago, really) ONE Barbie doll was enough. I had one beautiful long-haired blonde Barbie and her husband Ken and I played and played with them. My mom made me little small Barbie and Ken outfits that I would change around constantly as they went to various activities and dates. It was a great life.

One generation later, my husband I were in a similar financial situation as our parents. We weren't rich but we had enough and then some and were living a good life. ONE GENERATION later though...the entire Barbie scene had changed. Barbie dolls must have gone way down in price relative to income because my two daughters started receiving Barbie dolls for every birthday and Christmas. Before you know it, with two little girls and plenty of opportunities to GET and BRING IN, we had a big 'ol pile of Barbie dolls! It got to be ridiculous honestly. 

That's when I started implementing the rule of LIMITS.  

The conversation I had with my 4 and 6 year old girls went something like this:

"Now girls, I know you have a pile of Barbies and I'm sure you would like to keep them all. But we just can't keep everything, even though we want to. So here is a clear, labeled box that says "Barbies" on it. We can keep as many Barbies and their clothes as you can fit in this box. After that, the ones that don't fit will get to go to some other little girls that don't have any Barbie dolls."

This idea worked so well that I started using it on everything. Setting limits starts with the line (and sometimes you are saying it just to yourself) "We wish we could keep everything but we can't."

And then you decide on a reasonable size box or container to hold that/those particular item/s (how big? when in doubt challenge yourself and make it smaller rather than bigger!)

That is your limit.

Whatever you can fit in there can stay. The rest has to go.

AND, remember this.....the established limit stays the same as new things come in (and they will come). That means that tough decisions have to be made.


For example, here is the limit we have put on the DVDs at our house. Here are the G-rated and PG-rated DVD's including TV shows (the ones I don't mind anyone of any age watching):
(The movies are two deep because our shelves are that deep and you can see on the top shelf that we have our special collection of Harry Potter movies to one side and Star Wars movies to the other. They are stacked on the back.)

And here is the smaller collection of what I call "teen" movies. These are the ones that are rated PG-13 that I am fine with the older kids and their friends watching when the younger kids have gone to bed. 
As a family, we have determined that this is a reasonable amount of space for movies and that is the limit. That means that if a new DVD were to come in to our house, one of these here would have to leave. 

Remember my last post about being careful when you shop? This "limits" idea really helps with that too. If we know the DVD shelf is already full then we go to the store and see a new movie we want, one of us says "if we buy Zootopia today which movie at home are we getting rid of?" Sometimes it's worth it to still get the new one, sometimes it's not.

This same principle applies to just about anything...but here are a few more examples around my house.

WITH TOYS......
My daughter Carly is a big Littlest Pet Shop fan. I have picked up most all of these toys at yard sales and have seen a lot more that I could have bought. But this space is the limit set aside for these toys. When/if she gets a new, more amazing Littlest Pet Shop toy, she has to decide which one is leaving. The same holds true for the smaller pieces that go in the drawers. The drawers are the limits for those and when they are full and cannot be shut, choices have to be made and things have to be discarded.

WITH RECIPE BOOKS.....
This is the space I have set aside as the limit for my recipe box and recipe books. I am a fan of new recipes, I really am, so it is a very good thing for me to have limits set. Otherwise, this shelf could be four times as big and I would have it full. Sometimes I will acquire a new recipe book and slide it in there, try it out for a few weeks and then determine if it gets to stay. Not many of them do, honestly.  And that means that every one of these are truly awesome!

WITH KEEPSAKES.....
Keepsakes are the treasures from your life and they can be hard to get rid of. But having limits for things like keepsakes makes it so much easier to decide what to keep. Remember: We wish we could keep everything...but we CAN'T! Fit what you can in your limited space and be grateful you have some mementos for your future posterity to know you by.
This rings true for your children and their keepsakes too, by the way. Each one of my children has a keepsake box or drawer where they get to keep whatever they want. Once it's full though, tough decisions have to be made. "Would you rather keep that rock or that Popsicle stick collection?" or "Would you rather keep all 28 of your drawings from the 1st Quarter of Kindergarten or would you like to keep your 3rd grade report on China?" In my opinion, it's really good for kids to understand the concept that we can't keep everything. Let's teach them early to make those tough "what to keep" decisions so maybe they will be better at it than we are!

WE WISH WE COULD KEEP EVERYTHING BUT WE CAN'T!

and then set limits for the amounts we keep. 


6 comments:

  1. This is AMAZING! What a concept! We have mostly finished decluttering the house and I have things fitting nicely. In the kitchen I have all our appliances in a cabinet and for Mother's day my husband wanted to get me an instapot, something I have been wanting for a while. But because I know it won't fit I have put off getting it. Haha! I LOVE LOVE LOVE this idea! I can't wait to tell my husband about it and implement it everywhere!!

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  2. This is AMAZING! What a concept! We have mostly finished decluttering the house and I have things fitting nicely. In the kitchen I have all our appliances in a cabinet and for Mother's day my husband wanted to get me an instapot, something I have been wanting for a while. But because I know it won't fit I have put off getting it. Haha! I LOVE LOVE LOVE this idea! I can't wait to tell my husband about it and implement it everywhere!!

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  3. I think this method applies to everything we have except kids and fabric. :)
    Seriously,while this is basically what we did when we had all 9 children living at home(out of necessity more than brilliant organization),as the kids left home my thought was "more room!" and I filled the space. It certainly explains why I have more stuff now than before.
    And I soooo agree about books! It is so hard to get rid of books...but I decided a few years ago that our limit was two bookshelf units.
    Great article!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you! Haha....my mom would agree with you on the fabric!

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  4. This is great!!! Keep writing! Every time I read your posts I get so motivated to clean! (Which is huge for me just ask my husband!) already gone through our closet, drawers and pantry! Now for the kitchen cabinets....

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