It's 11:50 and I have just finished in Will's room. Will's room is not part of the attic, but it seems intertwined with the attic somehow, perhaps because half of the junk in the attic originated in Will's room.
You know what seems like a good idea when you're the parent of a messy kid? To periodically do a sweep of the messy kid's room and shove every little unaffiliated knick knack and doodad into a box, and then throw the box into the attic and pretend it doesn't exist.
Guess what? Bad idea.
Anyway Will has two rooms now, have I mentioned this? His old room (the room I just finished decluttering) shares a wall with the attic, and in the summer it gets super hot. This summer I rearranged my study and pulled Will's bed in there. Slowly, my study has become Will's bedroom and his study as well.
His old bedroom? Now it's sort of like Will's lounge. It has a nice chair and lamp, a table for projects, and Will's bookshelves. Soon it will be home to our fussbol table. Will is angling for a mini-fridge and a flatscreen TV as well, but I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon.
So Will has a suite of rooms now, as every sixth grader should. I spent time decluttering his old room today so that a) it would be easy to move in the fussbol table, and b) to feel like one part of the decluttering process is done. Not that it's totally decluttered, but it's a lot nicer and now that Will has moved across the hall, it actually has a chance of staying decluttered.
Which leads me to today's psychological tidbit:
When undertaking a large decluttering project, it's important to build in one sure success a day. It can be as small as a de-junked junk drawer and as big as an eleven-year-old's room.
Big take-home thought: Don't confuse "success" with "perfection."
By the way, I found an interesting article about decluttering via Pinterest. Here's the link:
http://www.rd.com/slideshows/personal-organizers-secrets-free/?trkid=outbrain-lt#slideshow=slide1
There were several fine pieces of advice, including "Your goal should be to reduce clutter, not create more storage space" and "Have rules about what you're keeping and what you're discarding." I'm good at rules. Do you have any rules for decluttering?
By the way, Jo, over at All the Blue Day, is also decluttering and has lots of good ideas.
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4 comments:
Aw! I wish I could give you our fancy foosball table. That's funny that Will has spread out his smart self, marking more space as his own in the family home. Happy clearing and cleaning, Frances!
A suite of rooms - now there's an idea. But please don't tell my children. They'll be having plans to extend our house and stay forever and ever. I am at the other end of childhood...people moving out is on the nearer-but-still-distant horizon. I might get a sewing room one day. And a study. And a spare room. Hallelujah and amen!
Frances, where are you writing now? Your study is now a bedroom. Doesn't that get a bit awkward?
I am having so much fun decluttering. But it has only just begun. It may get old quickly:)
You sound like you are powering along.
We used to have a foosball table in our family room which quickly found a new home in the garage because the players would get so hot playing (burning energy ya know) that they thought the garage would be cooler -- and it was, especially in winter months.
I like the thought about organizing/de-junking not being a reason to free up more storage space. I don't want to store any more stuff.
You're doing good work!
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