on the road to decluttery

**The following article was written by guest contributor, Lisa Weisenberger.**

We are a family of 8 and we accumulate “stuff.”  Sometimes this “stuff” gets out of hand.  A house that follows the saying “A place for everything and everything in it’s place” sounds like a dream home to me!   Things around my house just seem to fall where they may despite all of my good intentions and my issue with clutter follows me everywhere I go. 

Having recently moved from one house into another I thought I had a clean slate to work with.  I told myself and the rest of my family that the new house would be clutter free.  When my husband and kids were done laughing at me, we began to throw away things we no longer needed or wanted.  Or so I thought.  Now that we are mostly all moved in ( I say mostly because we still have more clutter-uh, things to move over to the new house), the new house looks pretty full to me.  Why is that? 

15 minutes doesn’t sound like a lot of time but I can actually get quite a bit done in 15 minutes!

The clutter followed me!  I thought we got rid of it all!  What happened?!  This house is supposed to be bigger than our last one, so why is there so much stuff laying around?  The answer may be quite simple to some of you, but for me I guess I needed a slap in the face.  I never designated a place for all the paper piled up on my desk, the dvds on the living room floor, the blankets all over the bedroom, you get the point, right? 

I am learning though.  I’m learning that if I don’t give these things a home they will wander forever around the house and stress me out, and not just me my family too! 

I have been starting out slow, small, and steady.  Taking 15 minutes out of my day to put things in their designated home or get rid of it is not too overwhelming.  15 minutes doesn’t sound like a lot of time but I can actually get quite a bit done in 15 minutes! 

Try it!  If we can be consistent and stick with it,  we will be rewarded with a clutter-free home we can relax in with our families.  We’ll be given a sense of control and achievement and I think that’s totally worth it!