Gypsy Tip for a Simplified Life

Having read a great deal on the topic of a simplified life, I feel compelled to add my two cents in. What gives me the authority to dole out such sage advice, you ask? Simple, I am one of those women that you love to hate, my house is clean when folks drop buy, I can always locate me keys and I never forget to buy milk. Feel free to hate on me, but try to glean a bit of wisdom while you are stewing. I have 2 small children, 1 large dog, a husband that works 10 hour days and I own my own businesses. When you throw of the the activities of a busy family of 4 onto that, you can easily see why I take an active approach to keeping my life simple. There are many tips and tricks that my friends and family have asked about and begun to emulate. I warn you, they are not all as easy as they seem, so if you really want to have less mess stress, you need to sack up and get it done.

Tip #1: You kid's bedrooms, otherwise know as the pit of disaster

Here is a photo of my 6 year old daughter's bedroom this morning. I had just completed an "every-couple months purge"

Obviously she does not have a bedroom straight out of a catalogue, but you will notice that it is what? CLEAN! But wait, you say, it was just cleaned, give it a few days and it will be trashed again! To those naysayers, I answer thus: yes there will be dirty clothes on the floor and toys left out and projects in process, but the key to easily taking it back to clean is this: 

Don't Let Your Kids Have More Stuff Then They Have Room To Put It Away!!!

Sounds simple, but I have lost track of the number of parents that freak out about their kid's rooms when there is actually no chance that little Johnny could clean his room if he wanted to! There are however, easy steps to thinning out the mess causers:

     At least every other month, take a handful of garbage bags into your kids rooms and proceed to get rid of as much stuff as possible. I can hear you screaming "but wait! I can't just get rid of stuff! It means so much to my kid!" Snap out of it! It means more to you then it does to your kid. Let it go! I do this cleaning without the help of my kids since they have an amazing ability to see a toy dragged out of some dark corner and claim that even though they have not touched it for 6 month it is their absolute favorite and has to stay. But I can report that in the YEARS that I have been doing these purges, I have never had either of my kids ask for something I have gotten rid of. I have never met a parent that did not have a very accurate idea of what their kids actually played with and really enjoyed and what gathers dust. Get rid of the following:

Anything that came with any kind of kids meal...period

The monster pile of corrected papers and artwork that comes home from school- let them display a few, if they want to put a new one up, take down an old one. Things that mom wants to keep go in a tub that you can store in a location away from their room. Bobbie got an A on a spelling test, great, put it on the fridge for a week then throw it away. Little Susie drew yet another picture of a horse, awesome,admire then recycle all but the one that makes you smile the most. Be ruthless here! This stuff can take over your life, enjoy then move on, don't worry, I won't tell.

Garbage-It never fails to amaze me how much trash is in a kid's room. Broken crayons, filled in work books, broken hair clips, barbie legs, socks with holes, mystery pieces of little plastic things-throw them all away, no one will miss them, I promise!

Clothes that are never worn-I don't care if you are keeping it because it was a gift or if you thought your son would like it, if it does not fit or is never worn, get rid of it! Life is too short! This should be done each season so your kids are not trying to cram a pile of clean laundry into the drawer on top of a stack of clothes than never sees the light of day.

Obsolete Toys-This is a tricky one since I find folks have more attachment to their kid's toys than they do. As our kids age, we buy them new toys they better fit with their ages and abilities, but most folks forget to go into their kid's room to take out the toys they have grown out of. Donate them! Yes even the toys that were bought for Christmas or a birthday and you though your kid would love but in actuality is ignored, get rid of it! It's ok, I promise. 

If you don't regularly weed out your kid's room, you are actually putting them in a no-win situation.

They have more toys and belongings than you have given them space/storage for, so they cannot put everything away in it's proper place if they wanted to. If all the bins and boxes and shelves and drawers of your kid's room are overflowing and there is still stuff on the floor and clothes in the laundry, do yourself and your kids a favor, haul out a couple garbage bags of non-essential to happiness stuff and watch both of your mess stresses go out with the trash....