I think it’s that time again for me. I do this periodically and I feel like it is always ongoing – trying to clear out all the “extra” stuff so the things we need, use and love are easier to access, use and put away.

And it gets hard sometimes! With young children I don’t always feel like I can allow myself long spurts of dedicated time to really get to the bottom of piles and the backs of closets.

But I feel quite motivated now to give this another dedicated attempt. And unlike challenges I’ve done in the past to get me going, where I’d try to reach targets of certain amounts of items just to make progress, I’d really like to go deeper this time and feel like I have actually finished something at the end of it.

I’ll be sharing my progress here for anyone who would like to follow my own steps or be inspired to create their own structure for getting to the bottom of their own messes!

So, first things first, before getting started, I’ve been working on a list room by room, listing all the things I know need to be done in each place by task. I’ve included some cleaning things in this list, because my regular maintenance is spotty at best, but that is not necessary and will actually be easier to tackle after the moving of “things” is done if you have deep cleaning that needs done, too!

Just to show you what I am working with here, this was before I thought of the laundry room, garage and shed so it’s incomplete. I won’t copy out my list word for word here as it’s specific to me, but I will go through the steps I take in each place as I tackle each area so you can see what I actually did.

So to start, I encourage you to make your own list specific to your own living spaces, and what your problem areas are and what you know you need to do with them. This will help you get to the root of your own clutter and should help you a bit more than just following my template exactly.

I’ve just started in on my bedroom first, it is definitely not the easiest place to start but it makes sense. So my next post will come when I have completed that and it will go over what the state was before and after and what I did to get through it all.

If nothing else, I hope watching me push through and just get things moving will help you get some momentum going too if you’ve been feeling stuck!

Please feel welcome to share your own efforts and progress along the way too, either here or on my Facebook page! It would help me, too, to see what others are dealing with and what they do with it!