That is a great title to sum it all up. Since my last post I have been extremely busy getting alot accomplished in my home. I purposely stayed off the Internet for that reason. It will be 3 weeks tomorrow. So let's begin with the plan.
1. De clutter all rooms, 20 rooms including walk-in closets,foyer, and upstairs hallway/loft.
2. Start with most back left corner room of home and work to the right. This is how my brain works, order.
3. Bins are labeled
Keep Toss(used trash bag for this) and
Donate. I learned this from the almighty "NEAT FREAK" herself Hellen Buttiegieg on the Show Neat
http://www.neattv.com/home.html
4. As I went along I cleaned what I could. The dishes and laundry just had to wait at times, 2 weeks of my life in disarray is minuscule to the Positive affects de-cluttering will have for a very long time, those are my actual words I used to tell my hubby why the dishes were not done ; ) With systems in place life can be easier, especially with summer right around the corner and the kids will be home all day then.
5. Reduce your calorie intake to 1200-1300 calories a day as you De-clutter home.
6. Buy things to help organize each room IE: Bins, Baskets, Plastic baggies to sort, various sizes. Plastic baggies help tremendously when you are sorting through your kids toys and little (what I like to call) chachkeys (Sp) I used sandwich, quart sized and gallon sized.
7. As you go through each room write down your goals for that room, list of things you'll need and the purpose you want to use that new room for, if different than it is now.
8. Carry a notebook in your purse, put one on the counter and near bed. Any ideas for rearranging, new picture frames, etc.. you can write them down. It's funny when I wrote things down and as I went over my lists every so often, it's amazing what my brain had me accomplish. I kept checking things off little by little.
9. MOTIVATION.. This can be hard to come by. I visualized first what I wanted the room to look like, this can be costly and time consuming, but hey~Rome wasn't built in a day. As long the decluttering motivation was there, the redecorating will come later on. What was inspiring was I bought and have on hand several organizing magazines for visual and looking online for simple low cost ways to organize. Watching Sell This House
http://www.aetv.com/sell-this-house/ helped me to be inspired which transferred into motivation, I just wanted the room done and went for it.
10. I can tend to be all over the place with my ideas for rooms and such so I gave myself a break at times, but I did stick with my plan and made it work for me.
11. Keep up with your systems everyday and they will keep working for you.
As of right now I still have one room to organize and clean, which is in the basement. I have papers in a pile that need sorting yet and a bills pile that needs to be filed. I plan on doing that this week.
In the past 3 weeks of decluttering my home I have lost 10 pounds. Here's how I did it
1. Reduced my calorie intake from @2000-1300. I just did it, no excuses, no cheating! Was inspired by Amanda over at
http://www.kevinandamanda.com/whatsnew/category/my-weight-loss-story I thought, hey if she can do it, then so can I. Go click and see what she has done, it's inspirational.
2. Short bursts of decluttering for @ 3-4 hours everyday. I ran up and down steps, burned some fat filing/organizing, made sure I took long ways to go around the house, carried things up and down steps myself, instead of asking hubby dear to do it.
3. Ate Clean, what does that mean you say, here's Tosca Reno's website
http://www.eatcleandiet.com/ that explains it. I ate clean and had 1 boxed weight watchers or Healthy Choice meals at lunch time.
4. No Heavy carbs at Dinner(Supper if your from where I'm from), meaning no breads rices etc., just fibrous carbs like 1 boneless, skinless chix breast in a salad with cherry tomatoes, a half an avocado and lemon squeezed all over for metabolism boost. Add some Olive Oil, by some I mean maybe a teaspoon. I always do way lower than the serving size, which is 1 tablespoon and that way I don't over do it. Add some balsamic vinegar and toss salad. It's great to have a big bowl with a lid so you can shake the dressing all over and get everything saturated.
5. Eat every 2 and 1/2 hours. This is so easy, but you have to eat good for you foods.
6. Drink plenty of water
7. Take supplements, like multivitamin, (what you don't get with foods you'll get in this) folic acid (strong and healthy nails and hair also great for women who are prepregnant or pregnant), fish oil (omega-3s great for your brain), and calcium, magnesium and zinc tablet at night for good remmy sleep.
8. Being active other than housecleaning.
9. Staying off the internet, this can be a great time and life consumer. I know this can be hard, but you have to make a decision with yourself to get yourself back. When your sitting too much this can make you sedentary and when your sitting on the computer, this can make you mindlessly eat, like eating a bowl of chips in front of the tv at night while a good movie is playing. Get off here and get moving. I want readers, but I want my readers to be blessed with good health also.
10. Let go of obsessing over it and just do it. Weigh yourself weekly and fagettaboutit. HeHe!
Well I hope that I have helped you and maybe later I'll throw in some photos of what I have used for decluttering like baskets and bins and such. 'Til my next post I bid you Adu' (Sp)
I really don’t ever use my zipper because it is so impractical with 4 kids that I have no time for fussing at the store counters. So it stays unzipped but I always carry it on my forearm for safety. You’ll notice in the next picture that my cell phone looks damaged and melted, well I left it in my car in 100 degree heat, which I don’t recommend, still works though.
Now go organize that purse of yours. Just dump it like I do and start all over. Sometimes my daughter even reorganizes for me. Any questions, contact me on the side bar or Please leave a comment. Thanks for reading, Christina
