C) Talk to your spouse in a mature way and set ground rules for future behavior

D) See a marriage counselor to address the spousal buy-in issues

E) Move to your own house (my parents live in separate homes)

F) Divorce your spouse and upgrade to a new one who is respectful of you and your things

G) …

The world is not black and white, you have MANY options.

But also, it gets me thinking of having a variety of checklists for misc situations – blame or thank my operations experience with NASA or volunteer firefighting, I guess.

e.g.: checklist for 30min evacuation in case of fire, another for surprise guest(s) in 5min, another for appliances on the fritz, another for the monthly dinner party, etc., etc. I know I could really use that for having people over for party’s or even just “chill nights”.

I guess you could apply, if you really wanted to, some kind of process refinement (Six Sigma, etc.) too. …You’d probably get to the the point of an uncluttered life at some point anyhow. How ’bout that

–S

This past weekend, I was the unexpected guest as four of us girls surprised a fifth who is expecting a baby for a surprise reunion weekend. (We are all close enough we knew she’d enjoy it) Her house was cleaned and comfortable and ready for guests– granted, her husband HAD surreptitiously done a lot of sprucing up for us, but still it was a reminder to me that being ready can put one in a position of generosity, which is always a good thing for everybody.

All of that, isn’t just about me. It’s about everyone else, too. It’s about helping the planet environmentally, or about helping my relationships with others such that I can more readily accommodate them and their idiosyncrasies. For me, being an unclutterer means being prepared for life, and all its curveballs.

In the anecdote printed, I’m sure the husband and wife, both, felt they have each given the partner a surpassing fine gift, that of making it possible to host the in-laws effectively. Imagine how great it must feel to know that you can help your spouse to love his or her parents.

In the long run, I’ve never really felt comfortable with the idea of “owning” my own space. I’ve always felt like I just rent it for a short time, and then I must leave. That space is, therefore, something I owe some duty to, in that I must not damage or disrespect it. Over-cluttering a home, to me, is just a lazy cop-out, something that would have let me out of an otherwise rather heavy responsibility, that of being prepared to respect my fellow humans and respect the planet.

I dunno … the anecdote really hit home for me. And I don’t even HAVE in-laws, because I’m not married!

This article speaks directly to one of my mother’s matras: If you keep up with your cleaning and tidying routine, you free your time for both the planned and unplanned.

Cheers!

Our bedroom is our sanctuary, ensuite always clean and bedroom tidy and bed always made, pity we have to walk through the kids playroom to get there. That room is the bain of my existance.

My mum would have freaked had she seen it this morning!

All these things spilled over into my adulthood luckily. So I stay organized, clean, and clutter free. Therefore when a surprise guest comes over…I have no need to scramble because I know I made my bed, the dishes are clean, and so forth. And when I had roommates, I laughed as they scrambled to make their rooms presentable. I would just sit back and took another sip of my drink.

Before you exit one of your “rooms” – take a look around and bring out the “daily clutter”. At the end of the day do a final sweep and set up for the next day – better than you found it.