Rule #10 Have a specific place to keep things that need to go

Here we are at the last of the Top 10 Dejunking Rules.....thanks for joining me on this journey so far! It's been amazing!

But don't worry. I still have a LOT more to say! (haha...were you honestly worried about that?)

In the upcoming months we are going to delve into the how to's of dealing with all sorts of things like papers (that's a HUGE one), storage units, yard sales, organizing kitchens and laundry rooms, kids keepsakes, books, photos and scrapbooks, knick knacks and collections, and holidays....just to name a few.

I'd also like to hear what YOU would like to "talk" about so feel free to send me your suggestions via comments or email.

But before we get ahead of ourselves...

here we go with

Rule #10 Have a specific place to keep things that need to go

One of the mistakes people make in dejunking and organizing their spaces is they believe it is a huge one-time "life event."

The bottom line is STUFF IS ALWAYS COMING IN so it needs to constantly be going out.  We talked a little bit about this in my blog about when something new comes in, something old goes out. The truth of the matter is, we are too affluent and stuff is way too easy to acquire. If things are coming in, other stuff just HAS to leave. Otherwise drowning occurs :) And none of us wants that.

This makes sense to most people and they generally agree that things need to be leaving. But one problem they usually have is they don't have a place in their home to specifically hold things that need to leave. Instead, they start making piles. And guess what? Piles are really just ugly clutter mountains that make our homes look disheveled and us grumpy. To put it mildly, piles should really be avoided at all costs.

Instead, a "get rid of'" container is a much better way to go.

Let me show you what I mean:

One of the things I have found we are constantly needing to get rid of at our house is articles of clothing (jeans, shirts, socks, and shoes) Why you ask? Because with active, growing children things never stay in great shape or fitting their bodies for very long. So I have discovered that having a specific bin in my laundry room for things to go out (labeled "Goodwill" here) is an absolute necessity.  Why you ask? Because in our house the laundry room is upstairs and I found that if my only "get rid of" pile was out in the garage, there were piles laying around upstairs (in the bedrooms and the laundry room) for the time it was convenient to get it to the box in the garage. Capiche?

Having this bin upstairs near the bedrooms really makes a difference in my ability to "corral" that

pile of clothes, socks, headbands, little knick knacks and even books and bags that I come across that need to be gotten rid of.

And when it gets full (like you can see here), then I take the time to pull it out and take the whole bin downstairs to the garage.

Meanwhile, this is the garage area where I keep those larger boxes that hold things that need to go. There are a lot of ways to deal with this. I'd love to hear what you do.  Here is what I do.

The bin with the green lid used to hold my charity items and when it was full I would transfer the items over to bags or boxes and take them to the local Goodwill. Then a couple of things changed. First, I was getting tired of having to transfer everything over to other containers when it got full and thought "why not just have "disposable" boxes to hold it in the first place?" And second, I started realizing that I was donating enough stuff that if I could store it for several months I could make some good money at a yard sale.  So between those two ideas, that's when I started picking up apple boxes from my local grocery store's produce department and filling those boxes instead.  For me, when a box is totally full, my husband puts it up in the rafters of our garage and it stays there until June when my neighbors and I host a multi-family yard sale and get rid of it all. (Putting on a yard sale is not for everyone but I love it and will be telling you all about how to do it successfully in a future blog post.)  If putting on a yard sale is really not for you, this system still totally works because when the box is full you can simply put it in your car and drop it off at any number of charitable organizations who gladly accept such things (yet another future blog post idea!)

So now what I use the large Rubbermaid bin with the lid for is to store "keepsakes" for my children. Remember my laundry room bins?

The one labeled "storage" is meant for two things. Clothes that come through that are not the correct size for my children currently and thus need to be stored away for when they grow a bit OR it holds clothing items (mostly) that my children really want to keep as a memento of their childhood or something wonderful in their life. An example might be a tee shirt from 5th grade graduation or a scarf from youth camp or a sweatshirt from a sports team. We don't keep a lot of those things but occasionally something is special and needs to be kept as a special keepsake.
And so that is what I keep in the big "green lid" bin. And then once a year, when that box gets full, we pull down each child's keepsake box (kept up in the rafters of the garage) and put things in it. Of course, just like we talked about here, bins force you to make decisions about what to keep and not. And it is the exact same thing here. When we pull down the keepsake bins and start evaluating what is already in there and what we have ready to put in, tough decisions sometimes have to be made. Remember our mantra "We wish we could keep everything but we can't?" Yes, that is used in full force here. And it works. (Keepsakes are another topic I am going to really delve in to at some point on this blog so stay tuned!)  So that is what the "green lid" box is for. And the two apple boxes are for selling at a yard sale or hauling off to the charity of your choice.  Hope that makes sense?

The bottom line is this:  things are constantly coming into our homes and they need to be constantly leaving. When you have a specific place (or two) to keep items that need to be said good-bye to, it keeps your prime spaces clear and your house less cluttered. Remember the goal is to have a place for every keeper and put every keeper in it's place, and that includes things that won't be a keeper for much longer. Have a place for them and you'll be much happier with the way your home looks and feels.

Until next time...happy shoveling!

Next blog post: Managing the Paper Chase Part 1

Rule #9 People are more important than things

I am a very religious person who truly believes in a loving God that watches over us and directs our lives. I believe He wants us to learn and grow and become more than we currently are and so He allows there to be challenges and struggles in our lives. I also believe that our loving Heavenly Father has a wonderful sense of humor. And that is why there exists, among other things, a certain phenomenon in marriage called the OPPOSITE LAW.

What is the Opposite Law you ask? Simply put, the Opposite Law is that amazingly universal rule that says that if any two people come together in marriage, one of them must be a frugal, miserly, worry-constantly-about money person and the other must be a free-spirit spender who can't keep a dime in their pocket to save their life. The Opposite Law also states that if two people are married, one has to be extremely cold blooded (or, as I like to call it, a Polar Bear) that would be perfectly happy to have the thermostat set at somewhere around 66 degrees and the other one is completely warm blooded (as in snakes and lizards body temperature) that has to wear a ski parka and winter hat around inside their house, even during the summer months when the AC is on, just to stay warm (hypothetically speaking, of course. I probably don't know anyone who has to do that?) And for sure this Opposite Law of the Universe says that if two people are married, one of them has got to SAVE EVERYTHING (just in case you might ever need your notes from your freshman college chemistry class or every nail and screw that you ever come across) and the other has to be the "why is there so much crap laying around here" kind of person who would throw away the kids' pet gerbils (we've had them for a week and they smell) and the wedding photo album (after all, that was a long time ago and really all it shows is lots of of  bad hair styles and embarrassing outfits).

The bottom line is the Opposite Law exists. It is real and a part of almost every couple's lives I have ever met. Thanks to our Heavenly Father's wonderful sense of humor, you can't escape it. SO, the time has come to realize it, embrace it and deal with it.

Without pointing fingers or naming specifics, my husband and I are 100% completely healthy and normal if the existence of the Opposite Law in our marriage is the gauge. We love each other completely and perfectly and, after 26 years of marriage and 2 years of dating, have come to appreciate and yes, even laugh at the fact that we are OPPOSITE in a lot of ways.

However,

in the early days, it wasn't quite that easy (if you know what I mean?)

While we could go on discussing all sorts of different ways we are opposite and how we have worked on appreciating those differences, this blog is about the accumulation of STUFF and dealing with that so we're going to focus on the last part of the Opposite Law previously mentioned--the one that says that every couple is going to have one person who likes to keep everything and another person who wants to get rid of everything!  It's a real problem...and it's time we delve in and talk about it.

Let's start with a story....(see if this sounds at all familiar?)

Once upon a time, there was a handsome young gentleman named Craig and his lovely, adoring wife Kim and they married, started their family, graduated from college and got a job in Washington State. They rented a small duplex and began living their dream life. It was at about this time that they really started accumulating things. They had received many generous wedding gifts that helped get their new household established and, as poor college students, they really had no resources to buy much of anything else besides the necessities. Until they started earning a monthly paycheck that was suddenly bringing in a lot more money than they had been used to. In an effort to be responsible, Craig and Kim sat down and budgeted their new paycheck and realized they had a bit of extra fun money each month to spend on things they wanted. They made a list of items they would really like to have like a new stereo, a new computer, new bikes and bike cart for the kids, etc. and slowly they began to acquire things.

About this time, Kim was enjoying establishing her new home and organizing it and decorating it in cute ways. And one thing she began noticing was that Craig was not like she was. He had grown up in a large family of 9 children and had been taught to not throw anything out because at some point it might become useful again. Kim had been raised by good parents who had much of the same philosophy but she also had a strong phobia of having too much stuff. To her, if you haven't used it in the last year, you don't need to keep it. This was a mind-boggling concept to Craig and he wasn't quite sure what to do with this crazy wife of his! And, not to be out done, Kim was wondering how in the world she was going to live her dream minimalist, no junk life with a guy who wanted to keep EVERYTHING?! It was a real problem.

About this time, Kim started reading books on the subject of home organization. She heard a new phrase called "Dejunking," which sounded like a wonderful concept to her. Her most favorite book on the subject was called It's Here Somewhere by Alice Fulton and Pauline Hatch, who were two women who actually lived in her same town!  This book was revolutionary because it taught the reader exactly how to dejunk, in simple steps and also explained well the concept of organizing after dejunking (in fact, it's where the phrase "a place for every keeper" comes from.)  About a year after Kim discovered It's Here Somewhere, she heard that the authors Fulton and Hatch were teaching a class for a local community group and she was excited to not only meet them but to ask her a most important question. You see, Kim had loved the concept of dejunking and getting rid of things that don't add anything positive to your life. BUT, Craig was against it. And so as much as she wanted to jump in and live a more minimalistic life where you only kept things that truly were used and appreciated and necessary, Craig was not on board. What to do?  Kim went to the class to find out. She enjoyed the class and what Fulton and Hatch had to say but specifically waited to ask her question at the end of the class. After all, she was really wanting to solve the problem.

When the question/answer time finally arrived, Kim raised her hand and asked her profound, well-thought out question "WHAT do you do if you want to streamline your home and only keep keepers, but your spouse does NOT?"

And do you know what those two ladies said? (It wasn't at all what Kim was expecting.)

They said
"Nothing is worth ruining a relationship over. Stop nagging and fighting him about it and just streamline your things and the things you have jurisdiction over. We predict that eventually your husband will see that keeping everything is not only stifling but completely unnecessary. And if he doesn't, you can still enjoy a happy life together if you choose people over things."

Ta-Daaaaaahhhhhhh......

There, ladies and gentlemen, lies the answer to most every marriage conflict. But especially this one.

So, let me "show and tell" you how I have worked to resolve this in my marriage.

First, let it be known....I don't do junk drawers. Or junk closets. Or junk spaces. Ever. Anywhere.
But when I found that my husband needed that, I eventually realized it as a need and obliged.
Here is one of his many "junk" spaces in our home that he uses to collect stuff. This one is in our bedroom closet and he tosses things in at his discretion. I don't touch it. It's not how I choose to live or what I would love to see in my closet, but it's his closet too, right? Enough said.

And this would be the shelves on his side of the closet. In my "ever-so-dejunking" opinion, there are WAY too many pairs of pants here that NEVER get worn. He keeps old jeans for "work pants" even though he has a lot and only needs one or maybe two pair a week (I DO do laundry after all).  Keep in mind that these are not his "going to work" clothes. Those slacks are all hanging up. These are extra and if it were up to me, I'd get rid of at least half of them. But....it isn't up to me really. So, as long as there is some space for me to put clean "work pants" away, I make it work.

This is a picture of his section of the closet for shirts. For me, and my dejunking brain, there are WAY too many shirts here. He wears some of them most of the time and the rest just sit.  But I've learned that he's not as comfortable with getting rid of a shirt once it comes to reside in the closet. Maybe he's worried about hurting it's feelings? (I don't know...just pulling at straws trying to figure it out.) But, in the end, it's the way it is. So, I have learned to just let it go. It's his closet and he deserves his space. (Except....I do do this. On my birthday, Mothers Day and Christmas when he asks me what I want for a gift and I say "I want you get rid of 5 shirts out of your closet :) He usually doesn't but it's worth a try!)

This is a picture of our kitchen drawer. If it were entirely up to me, that box of "junk" next to the rolodex would be much less full and a lot more clean and organized. Hoewver, it's not entirely up to me and that is the hubby's spot in the drawer. He puts miscellaneous tools, screws, nails, plastic parts and pieces and who knows what else in there. It's never clean. He rarely gets anything out of it. But I have learned to just let him have his space and be OK with it.

And this would be the shop in the basement. I have attempted at times to help in the organization of the place. But.....

I've learned you can buy containers and such and even label them....but when a person likes a little chaos or mess in their lives, you have to let them fly a bit.

And that's not to say that my husband doesn't take care of things or like to be able to find things. He would say that his shop is a mess partly because we have 3 sons who like to work in here. I would say that that counts for a bit but probably not even half of the disorganzation in the room. Nevertheless, I shut the door and let it be....unless he asks me, on a Saturday afternoon "What should we do now?" Then I might have been known to throw in "Let's go clean your shop!" which doesn't ever work (but a girl can try.)

I know that to some of you these places don't look so bad. And granted, it could be much worse. But I really, really like an organized clean space and the post is to hopefully explain that

people really ARE more important than things

and you can work with those you love to find balance and compromise in the way you handle the management of your things.

Next post:  Rule #10  Have a specific place to keep things that need to go.

Rule #8 Organize into categories and then use clear, labeled containers to hold smaller things.

In some of my previous blog posts, but specifically in the one called "Organizing After a Junk Raid," (which you can read again here) I talked a lot about the basic organizing principles of putting things together in like categories and then labeling them.  Here are some examples around my home of where and how and why this works:

This is a picture of my kitchen pantry. You can see here that because I have used containers to hold like things, that all of my spaces, clear to the back of each shelf, are used to their maximum efficiency. It makes it so even the very top shelf that is hard to reach is totally usable.

See? The top shelf, even though it is barely reachable, is completely usable. All someone has to do is reach up and pull a container down, get the item they need out and then put the box back. It makes every inch of that space completely usable.

When you are organizing your spaces, always keep in mind the super important principle of SPACE PRIORITIES (have you forgotten what that is or are new to this blog and don't know?  If so, read about it here).  Which means that the things that you use the most deserve to be in your most easy-to- get-at spaces. So here, you can see that I use our medicines and bandages more than I use batteries or extra light bulbs. These are all things we need to keep (they are keepers!) but are used in different amounts and in different frequencies.

As far as figuring out how to group like items together and pick a container to use, you can see on the shelves in my pantry that what I have done is determined a general category or "grouped like minded things together" -- things like bandages and creams and internal medicines -- and then put them together in one medium sized clear box. Some people make the mistake of grouping items together in such SMALL groups that it overwhelms them. So, for example, I wouldn't have a specific container for pain relievers, and another one for antihistamines, and another one for anti-acids.  One big one for every type of medicine that goes INTO your body was good enough for me.

The same thing is true for batteries....it's an overkill to have one box for AA and AAA batteries and another for C and D batteries. If I had rechargeable batteries and a charger I would keep it in here too.

One of the things I love about using containers for all sorts of items is, not only is it easy to pull out the box and reach the item clear far in the back (as opposed to having to climb up there and try to reach clear far back to get at it) but it sets a limit for you on how much of that thing you can hold before it's time to go through and dejunk again or figure out what you really don't need.  I talked a lot about setting limits in a blog post recently that you can read here and it comes up again when talking about how to use containers and labels to keep your home organized. I LOVE that containers give me the option of keeping things up to a certain point but then force me to "limit the chaos" and keep things under control.  Which brings up another good point. Every few months or so, when you see a container reaching capacity or feel a sudden "this is a mess" feeling, take just a minute and pull a few things out to get rid of. This especially happens to me in the "internal medicines" box when medicines expire and need to be discarded or when one medicine is almost gone and can easily be combined with another of the same kind. Your containers do not need to necessarily be super organized as in all things lined up, alphabetized or neatly stacked (a good example of that is my batteries container you can see above). As long as it contains what the label says and you can reach in and find things fairly easily, you are doing great!

Another thing I love about using containers to organize is that it makes things really easy to see....for you and for your family members. Especially if you use clear containers, which I think is best if you can make it happen, it's pretty easy to see what the box is holding, how much you have of it, and it makes it very accessible to get at the item you want. Take, for example, this container of match box cars. Not only does it set a limit for my boys and how many cars and trucks they can have but it is also really easy to pull these containers down (one at at time is usually my rule) and my boys or their friends can reach in and find what they are looking for, usually without having to dump the whole thing out.

One of the places I have loved using the labeled containers idea is this area next to our family room.

It has a mud room feel with the hooks for backpacks and coats but the use of all of the clear containers makes it be able to hold so much more. In our home we have a basement that has a play room with lots of toys. But, especially when my children were young, all of the toys like these you see here that have lots of pieces were just NOT going to work down in the play room. Why? Because for some strange reason, one of the things kids love to do the very most is to dump well organized bins out. Have you ever noticed that? Did you think it was just the children in your life that did that? Well, it's not. Its pretty much any child anywhere in the world. The best solution I found was to have these containers hold the toys with lots of pieces AND put them up high where just an adult can get to them. If my children or children visiting would ask to play with the wooden blocks, for example, I would get the bin down and let them play right there in the family room. Then when they said "Now I want to play with the trains," I would say "Okay! Sure thing. Just pick up the blocks first and then we will put them away and get the trains down."  Every once in a while, the kids had big plans to make a fort out of blocks and then use the army men and dinosaurs. If that was the case, I would definitely make an exception and let more than one bin down. I love creative play like that!  But most of the time, the one bin at a time rule worked just fine and definitely helped in the management of messes.

Here are a few close-ups so you can see better:

As a side note, I really liked the method of storing children's books, like you can see here. I found that kids can pull out the bin, file through one at a time and find the book they want, pull it out and read and then put it back in and get another without making any mess at all. I liked having one bin for learning books (basically non-fiction) and then one bin for little board books (for babies who like to chew on books and tear pages) and then another for large fiction books. Like I said earlier, part of organizing is figuring out how to break things down into reasonably sized like items and this one for books really worked for me. I also liked how it limited the number of books we can have. I know that might sound like heresy to some of you but truly....just because books are "printed material" doesn't mean they are made of gold. AND, in this day of total affluence, they have basically no monetary value at all. You might disagree with me if you buy your books at school book fairs or Barnes and Noble but, as a frequent yard sale shopper, I'm telling you that really nice kids books cost 25 cents to 50 cents each--less than a candy bar or pack of gum. So, I'm giving you permission to buy a few, send a few out, and only keep a large but limited supply of your favorites. (You're welcome ;)

Another place I use labeled containers a lot is in this closet in the den.  In my next post I am going to be talking all about how to deal with a spouse who wants to keep everything (and the top shelf in this closet is a prime example of that :) and how to compromise and still maintain some order in your home.  So stay tuned for that.  But, as for organizing this closet with labeled containers, I think it's a good example of using different types of containers to get maximum efficiency out of a space and still be able to find everything pretty easily and quickly.  In a future blog post, I am going to be talking all about PAPERS but suffice it to say here that the middle shelf is where I spend the majority of my time here in this closet and thus it gets the middle shelf PRIME SPACE. My scrapbooking paper is up top which I use quite a bit and then family games are reachable for the rest of the family.

After you have dejunked and are ready to start finding PLACES FOR YOUR KEEPERS, organizing your keepers into reasonably-sized categories and then storing them in preferably clear, and for sure labeled containers in the way to go! I'd love to see pictures of the ways you have found to store your items and please send me questions of specific spaces in your home you are wondering how to organize. I might not know the answer every time but I'd love to give it a shot!

Next blog post:  Rule #9  People are more important than things.

Rule #7 Have a place for "extras" and "errands"

This rule is a direct result of Rule #1 Learn to Love Empty which you can read about here as well as one of the most important organizing principles Space Priorities which you can read about here.

The problem we have, in dealing with stuff and spaces is that
we might LOVE empty but have a hard time achieving it.
OR
We might really WANT to protect our prime spaces but have a hard time doing it.

Rule #7 is going to really help you with both of those.

Let me explain.

As you go about your day to day life, things are constantly coming into your home (and hopefully going out too :) And when you are protecting your PRIME SPACES and wanting them to be EMPTY, it is hard to do with so much in between stuff coming and going. What I mean by that is the stuff that really doesn't deserve to be in your prime spaces but can't be gotten rid of and needs a semi-permanent place to reside...sometimes for a while and sometimes for only a few days.

Let me show you what I mean

Do you have any of these things in the prime spaces in your bathroom?

In my post about space priorities, I specifically talked about the bathroom's prime spaces.
Remember these pictures of my master bathroom?

Remember how we talked about that the counter tops and even the drawers are your prime spaces. Only things that you use every single day deserve to be in those spaces, right?  But those aren't the only things you own and want to keep, right?

Consider these things again and ask yourself:

What do you do when you buy a pack of combs and only need ONE in your drawer?
What do you do when you buy extra razor blades in a pack of 5 and you only need ONE?
What do you do when you buy a package of emery boards,
or an extra pack or two or teeth flossers?
or a package of 2 pairs of shoe laces and you ONLY NEED ONE?

Do you know what most people do? They put all of them in their prime spaces.
Because they don't know any better.
And then their prime spaces fill up and they get grumpy and overwhelmed and embarrassed.

What's the solution?  Have an "extras" container. Have a specific place, kept fairly close to your bathroom (not a total necessity but it is nice) to keep your extras that don't deserve to be in your prime spaces.

My extras container for the bathroom is in the closet in my shower/toilet part of the master bathroom. It's down on a lower shelf, kind of out of the way, and having it has helped a lot with keeping only the things we use every day in our prime spaces.

The job of this "extras" container is to simply hold those things that do need to be kept and keep them away from the prime spaces in the bathroom.

 If you are wondering what is on the floor in that closet, it is another container of what you might call "extras" which are our travel supplies. There is a time and place when it's nice to have travel size toothpastes, deodorants and shaving cream. There is a time and place where it is nice to have toothbrush covers and toiletry bags and travel size shampoo and conditioner containers. But they DEFINITELY don't deserve to be in your prime spaces. That's why I strongly encourage anyone who is trying to get control of their spaces and stuff to consider having an "extras" container. It's the best way to protect your prime spaces.

Ready for another example?

How about the kitchen? Perhaps my most favorite place to try to protect prime spaces and one that I think, in my kitchens, is housing way too many things that don't deserve to be there.  Let's talk about it by looking at the example from my kitchen extras box.

In trying to run a household and be a frugal, responsible, happy homemaker, I find it completely necessary to buy some things in bulk or from yard sales. There are just some great deals out there! So, one of the things that I keep in my kitchen extras box is things like extra Bosch Mixer parts that I randomly/luckily find at yard sales or thrift stores. Do you see the metal whips in the middle of the box? That is a $25-30 part that I found at a yard sale for $1. 

How about the Pampered Chef corn butterer you can see in the bottom left?  During the summer months (June-September) we love to eat corn on the cob and I think this invention makes buttering your corn amazingly convenient and mess free. But during all the other months of the year (this picture was taken back in March 2016) my corn butterer does not deserve to be in my prime spaces.

What about the bag of chop sticks you can see in the top right area?  This big bag was a funny gift from a brother to his little sister who LOVES eating with chopsticks. Before Christmas, she would get my shish-ka-bob sticks out in order to eat her Ramen noodles with them. So one of her brothers bought her a package of her own wooden chopsticks as a Christmas gift. I thought it was so sweet! And she was thrilled! But there were 50 pairs of chopsticks in that bag. And she uses one pair at a time, usually more than once, before they get thrown away. What am I am going to do? Well, I'm certainly not gong to keep all 50 pairs in my prime space in my kitchen. I will keep 1 or 2 but not 50. So they get to reside in my kitchen extras box too.

I hope these three examples help give you an idea about what I'm talking about when I say a box for extras is really helpful in protecting your prime spaces.

Another way to protect your prime spaces is to have a specific "out of the way" space to keep things that need to go somewhere else soon.  A couple of specific examples of what I am talking about are things that need to be returned to a store or things that need to be returned to a specific person. Maybe you borrowed something and need to return it or maybe a friend was over and left something at your home that needs to be returned.  In most cases, I try to put the item right in my car and take to them right away but occasionally there are extenuating circumstances that make that impossible. And it is really nice to have a place to put it that you know where it will be and that is still a bit out of the way.

This is what I'm talking about. I call these hooks that are in the front entry closet "the errands hook" and sometimes refer to them when someone in my family says something like "Mom, do you know where that swimming towel is that Bailey left here? She's here to pick it up." And I answer "It's hanging in a bag on the errands hook."  Boom. They know where that is and the item is easily retrieved. Hope that makes sense.

In the end, having spaces that hold things for you away from your prime spaces and that help you protect those spaces is a real help. Take advantage of it and have a place for "extras" and "errands" in your home too!

Next blog post:  Rule #8 Organize into categories and then use clear, labeled containers to hold smaller things

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.

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     They looked at me in total bewilderment but with obedient hearts and they proceeded to negotiate and figure out which Barbies were staying and which were not. It was a tough decision. In the end, we had at least 12 Barbies (in various conditions) that were set aside to go to new homes. And the rule of SETTING LIMITS was established.
     We wish we could keep everything but we can't.
     WITH SMALL TOYS AND BOOKS....My feelings are the same when it comes to toys or books. They are so CHEAP to buy (especially second hand) and so PLENTIFUL on birthdays and holidays. Setting limits on them is the only way I know to really keep it all sane.  Here is our collection of Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head. There are a lot more pieces that I could have bought through the years and, I admit, they are a very fun toy. But....enough is as good as a feast, right? Enough is enough. And this box really helps me see what is ENOUGH.
     In fact, one of the most eye opening experiences of my life came when I was getting ready to set limits on the matchbox car situation at our house.  I haven't been to too many places around the world but my husband started traveling a lot for work about then. One of his first trips was to the Philippines and he came back with stories and pictures that amazed us all. One of the things that affected us most were the pictures he took of the "squatter camps." There are so many extremely poor, homeless people in the Philippines that they have just started setting up cardboard shacks right on the sides of the streets. They live there, cook in the gutters, and sleep in their makeshift homes. The children usually don't have clothes at all, forget about toys. My husband saw two boys happily playing naked in the street with an empty milk carton squashed up to be a ball. Anytime we think our children here don't have enough, let's think about their only toy being a piece of garbage that they happily play with.  My husband's coworker was headed back to the Philippines the next week and I said to my boys "why don't you pick out some cars for her to take and give to the little boys there who have NONE." They were so happy to do so and gave her some of their most favorites with little notes attached telling the Filipino boys exactly how the features on the car worked. I was so touched. It made me realize what a blessing it can be to our children to 1) become aware that there really are people with NONE and 2) to give up things to better the life on another. Books are another thing I really think we need to set limits on. It used to be that the feelings about books were almost to the point of worship. People felt like if something was in print it was basically gold. And that sentiment is really not true anymore. Have you seen the thrift stores and yard sales? They can hardly GIVE books away, let alone sell them. There are a lot on the market and they really are not hard to replace. My advice with books? Set a reasonably sized limit and keep yourself (and your family) to it.
     The application of this idea of LIMITS is really endless. I feel like it is one of the most important parts of keeping your home and spaces clean and organized. 
     We simply have to say to ourselves and our families:
     Next post:  Rule #7  Have a place for "extras" and "errands"
2. 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.