We need to talk. It’s about all that stuff you’ve accumulated in your house since you had kids and how it’s affecting you.
Almost every mom I talk to says they just have to accept the mess even if it bugs them. They deal with it even though they don’t like it. They just don’t look at it. They don’t obsess about cleaning anymore.
There are places in our homes we don’t go because we don’t want to see the mess! I’m guilty of this too. For me it’s one of the rooms in the basement. It’s like a thrift store threw up down there. There’s stuff everywhere that we’re not using.
What are we doing about it? Ignoring it!
We’re doing what all those other articles tell us to do. We’re letting go of the idea we can have a house that looks the way we want.
As a mom, I get it. When you have a newborn, that’s your only option, let things slide a bit. The problem is, things start piling up. A year into the journey you realize there’s stuff everywhere. You have a hard time remembering everything. You have no energy and you feel like you’re barely making it through the day. You feel like you’re failing as a mom and a wife. Do you think there might be a connection between your state of mind and all the stuff?
Gretchen Rubin does. She has written several times on the topic and I think we need to listen. She did a mini podcast episode a few months ago called“A Little Happier: Outer Order Contributes to Inner Calm”. In this episode she talked about how she was feeling kind of stressed out. She had some trips coming up and there were lots of things she had to do to prepare. She wanted to do something to help her feel calm. So she did something she often does to make herself feel better.
She looked for a messy place in her apartment and cleaned it up.
In this case, it was a messy drawer in her kitchen. In 10 minutes she put everything in order. She felt “enormous satisfaction” from completing this task. Enormous satisfaction! When’s the last time you felt that?
She goes on to say it would seem odd but over and over people have told her that they feel the same thing. “Getting control over the stuff of life makes us feel more in control of our life generally. There’s something calming and energizing about putting things in order.”
In this post she talks about how some people don’t notice clutter or genuinely aren’t bothered by it. She calls these people clutter-blind. For those of us who are not clutter-blind, clutter is a problem. I think this is especially true for people like me that used to be organized.
If we ignore the fact that the mess and the clutter are bothering us, we are doing ourselves a great disservice. It’s bothering us every day. It affects our mood. Gretchen says again and again,
“One thing that continues to surprise me about the nature of good habits and happiness is the degree to which, for most people, outer order contributes to inner calm.”
She goes on to say “An orderly environment makes me feel more in control of my life.”
Isn’t that what we all want? To be calm? To feel in control? To get back to that place?
I think most of the information out there about how to get it all done when you’re a mom is wrong. First, because they’re generally not actually giving you any tips for getting things done. Second, because they’re telling you to live without outer order. That you should accept that you won’t have outer order and that is the answer.
Sacrificing your inner calm is not the answer.
You and I know that we need it for ourselves. We rely on that inner calm in dealing with our toddlers every day. We don’t want to flounder because we have a million things to do and don’t know where to start. We know that something else always comes up. That’s why this is so important.
Taking the time to pick up your house and get things in order will lead to inner calm. I have experienced this myself. So please, listen.
Don’t just take our word for it though.
Test it out for yourself.
Next time you need some calm, take 5-10 minutes to clean something up. Just pick from the list below.
- Mail pile
- Kids’ art projects
- Kitchen counters
- Toys in the living room
- Out-of-season coats
- Out-of-season shoes
- Your purse
- Diaper bag
- Desk
When you’re done, think about how it makes you feel. Then leave a comment here telling me:
- Do you feel better about yourself?
- Did it give you a sense of satisfaction?
- Did it help you feel more in control of your life?
- Was it worth the time?
I’m looking forward to hearing from you!
I’ve been doing this more and more lately. It’s frustrating to have extra counter space and flat surfaces only to have them filled with mail, games and “stuff” so I make more of an effort to have my table and counters cleaned. They are definitely more inviting that way and yes, cleanse the mind and relieve stress at the same time.
Now the focus is on teaching the boys in the house to follow suit. 😉
Thanks for the tips!
Sarah Butland
author of Being Grateful, Being Thankful
I love it Sarah! Good luck getting those boys to follow suit!
Totally using this advice today. Clutter drives me craaaazy but my husband seems to be immune to it. This is the first weekend in a while I’ve had a little extra time, and I want to use it cleaning up the messy pile of mail and papers on top of our dining room table!!
Awesome Chrissy! I’d love to hear how long it takes you to clean up the pile 🙂 I’ve got a pile of artwork on the dining room table that I’m going to address right now. Maybe I’ll use a timer to see how long it actually takes to deal with (I take pictures of all the artwork so that I can then recycle it…)
3:44.73. That’s how long it took to deal with that one pile. Less than 4 minutes.
We just downsized from 2800sf to 550sf. To say we are dealing with clutter is an understatement. This article is a great encouragement to take one box, one pile at a time, each day, every day. Thank you!
Wow Veronica – that’s less than 20% of the space you had! So glad you found encouragement to take it one step at a time!
I love Gretchen Rubin! Whenever I would get overwhelmed in my former job, I would take the 10-20 minutes to clean up and sort my desk. It was amazing what a difference that made to my whole attitude… Now that I stay at home and am working to build an at-home business, I need to remember to do that here too. Right before school starts is a great time to conquer the clutter monster! 🙂
Donna I love Gretchen Rubin too – can’t wait to see if you try this at home and it helps your attitude there too 🙂
10 minutes can make all the difference! We do this as a team! My husband doesn’t love when I call for the 10 minute clean, but even he appreciates what we can accomplish in such a short amount of FOCUSED time.
Amy, I love the idea of doing it as a team! (Though I can imagine my husband wouldn’t love the idea either, but my 3 year old probably would.)
2 books by Marie Kondo
Spark Joy & The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I have added into my daily reading with Gretchen Rubin’s Better Than Before!! I feel they compliment each other well and can be used together!
That’s an interesting idea Jenn! I didn’t actually make it all the way through The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I could also do with a re-read of Better Than Before. Maybe I’ll give it a go.
One thing that has helped me in doing “small tasks” is to actually set a timer to determine how long the task took. I found I could clean my kitchen counters in 3 minutes (while my coffee brews). Cleaning the front of the stainless steel refrigerator took 1 minute. Of most use to me was finding out it actually took 4 minutes to blow dry my hair…so no excuse based on time for not washing my hair after exercise.
Karen – I love this! Just the other day I actually timed myself doing a task. I’ve been thinking about timing several tasks to see if they take the amount of time I thought they would. Maybe I’ll do it and then write a post about it…
The Fly Lady does the ” 27 fling boogie “. She gets a garbage bag and throws 27 things away! She doesn’t stop till she has 27 things. She also does the “15 minute boogie” in which she sets her timer for 15 minutes and throws as many things as she can away (or gives them away). I started that habit and love it!
Very interesting! I don’t know that I’ve tried any of The Fly Lady’s tactics, though I know a lot of people really like her. I will definitely have to look those up, thanks!
Loved this and will be sharing it on our page facebook.com/GreatParentingShow tomorrow! Thank you! Joanna
Thanks Joanna!
“Less of a failure as a wife and Mom”
Oh dear, was that my chest constricting and my neck tensing?
I could challenge the main tennet of this article, but I simply can’t get past the headline. A successful wife and mother has nothing to do with a clean house! Have we learned nothing? Just because this sexist headline is sugar-coated in the finery of “happiness” does not make it OK.
The headline is not to say that one should feel like a failure, but rather if you do there’s something you can do about it. It’s based on my own personal experience and feelings. If you don’t feel that way about your home, that’s great.
Totally agree
I totally get the controlling your environment sense of calm. Can’t help feeling we are replacing one type of neurosis with another. We still aren’t good enough. A good mom and wife? How about feeling like a whole person, not a societal sub type. We aren’t good enough because we can’t provide enough and now because we provide too much. Maybe it’s less about stuff and more about us. Moving our obsessions from more to less is like tidying clutter. It’s still there it just takes on a different form