- Limit what comes into your house
—Limit what you buy for them (be strong)
—Have gift free birthday parties or ask for a gift donation for a shelter or a good cause (plus don’t send the children home with cluttery party favors and possiby other parents will do the same)
—Have a serious talk with friends, relatives, asking for clutter free gifts such as college fund donations; experience gifts such as a family pass to the zoo or taking them out for a day of fun; helping buy something the child really needs or is special (watch, camping gear); something that gets used up,
—Designate excess or cluttery gifts as “grandma’s house items” that stay at grandma’s and can be used there
- Rotate toys so everything isn’t available at the same time
- Use the “one toy in, one toy out” rule, which will also help them start donating or getting rid of broken or worn out items at an early age
- Designate “toy areas” and “no toy areas” in your home
- Keep a few toys in areas where you don’t want lots of toys and designate them something like “kitchen toys” and keep them in an basket that makes it easy for the kids to put the toys away
- Have an easily identifiable and easily used “place for everything”
- Spend more time with them doing activities that don’t require lots of toys, such as biking, something with a ball (that’s wide open),
- Try “The House Fairy” game, started by Pam, who was one of the Sidetracked Home Executive”, and is explained on FlyLady’s web site (flylady.net). You can buy some extras from Pam, but you can also do it on your own. The House Fairy comes at unexpected times and leaves small gifts (preferably not clutter) when she finds a clean room and also leave a message for the child telling them what a great job they have done and how proud she is of them. Parents have found this works well and even older children buy in when there are younger children so they, too, can get a little surprise. They find that children are calmer and less stressed with clean rooms.

Essentially, we bombed at all of these, so hope they help someone else

Matt

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.