I’m invisible, they seem to tell me. Just keep going, working in the background tirelessly. Sweep up after them, stay up late cleaning up the fallout area of their day’s activities. Think, think, never stop thinking about what’s coming next- what will they need, how will they get it, what do you need to do before then.
Listen. Listen to the complaints or protests about what you’ve prepared. Receive the constant barrage of requests, negotiations, over the simplest matters. Respond to the cries for assistance with tasks that were mastered long ago, despite already being half-drowned by your own waiting tasks.
Only since becoming a mother have I ever felt this way. It’s a funny thing- the most wonderful thing in my life is also the thing that can make me feel the worst, if I don’t watch my mindset. What dangerous things, our thoughts. Powerful things.
I used to feel -and complain about- feeling invisible. “I do all of this work all of the time and nobody ever notices.” Does that sound familiar? For anyone who is the primary caretaker of the home and the people in it, I imagine it does. Only since becoming even more embedded into this role- mother, caretaker, homemaker – have I started to realize what I really am.
A house can be either a place of mere shelter or an inviting refuge filled with comforts and a sense of safety, belonging, and love. I, as a mother, can either view myself as a servant operating in the background, or as the source of peace for those who call our house their home. Picture a brand new home, empty and bare. Once occupied, items are placed carefully throughout to lend a sense of charm, comfort, serenity, and creativity. Over time, the home’s occupants may not notice each individual item as they go about their daily life. The feelings, however, are woven into their soul as intricately as a tapestry on a wall.
Yes, I am often sweeping up messes. Nearly every ounce of my energy is used by the time darkness falls, but I now realize that I hold a unique and special power. I am far from invisible. My influence is evident in every part of our home and life. When my husband wakes and appreciates the smell of something cooking, that is me. When my sons, tears falling and knees scraped, stumble to me with confidence they will be wrapped in a hug, that is me. My daughters play fearlessly, never doubting their safety, and that is me.
Along with the mundane, monotonous threads of our daily life, I can weave magic, joy, passion, and confidence. Not only in the lives of my family but in my own. I have chosen which role to play in my family in this season, but the role is mine to play. I will make it my own, and I will revel in it.
Are you in a season of life where keeping up with the cleaning feels impossible? Are you drowning in mess but have no time or energy to declutter? If so- read on. I’m just getting out of that boat. Hear my story, know you are not alone, and get some practical tips for making quick progress that will make your daily life easier.
I delivered twins a little over a year ago. I am only now feeling capable of simplifying our space. Not all in a day, mind you, but I first knew I could manage 30 minutes here and there on a consistent basis once the twins finally slept through the night. It wasn’t as if the build-up of clutter had only started bothering me. Oh, no. It stared at me from every surface as I went about my day. Complete and utter physical and mental exhaustion put a little damper on my ability to deal with it. I have two other children who obviously also need love and attention and enrichment. If I had free time, I had to give them that, not spend time going through closets.
Why is there so much stuff everywhere?
For some background, the house we are living in belongs to a family member, and they still keep quite a bit of their belongings in the house (some of the bedrooms for storage, coat closets, etc). This is entirely their right, but it has presented a challenge as to what to do with our belongings. Finding space for things like out-of-season clothes, the vacuum cleaner, Christmas decorations, extra paper towels, and so on, isn’t easy. Plus, I have clothing in approximately five sizes to accommodate the wild weight fluctuations I tend to have.
After a period filled with frustration at myself, and honestly sometimes my family, for things getting messy just hours after I’d organized them, I ran to Google. “Organizing kids toys.” “Storage solutions for small spaces.” “Cleaning routines for busy moms.” I must have spent hours trying out different techniques. Ways to fold clothes to fit more in a drawer. Stack items in bins so they all fit in a cupboard. Fit more stuff in smaller spaces. You get the idea. After a while, it sank in. It was not possible to keep as many items as we owned if my goal was to spend less time cleaning. Not with four young children anyway.
Don’t declutter until you’ve done this
The very first, most important part of beginning the process of ridding your home of clutter is to envision what it will be like when simplified. Imagine getting a call that someone is in town and would love to stop by, and it would only take 15 minutes or less to get things back to a state where you’d be fine with company seeing your home. Imagine your kids being able to keep their room clean. Or using your “free” moments during the day to have a cup of coffee, or tend a garden, or read a book instead of cleaning up messes.
Please, don’t think for a minute that I have, or think you should have an immaculate home with no signs of real life inside. My kids drop food (ALL OVER THE PLACE). I am not a great decorator. My vacuum stays in the hallway most of the time because it’s easier to vacuum up the aforementioned crumbs when it’s easy to reach. I have a basket for laundry in the living room since I often change the twins there. It’s all about making your home and your lifestyle fit YOUR needs.
Laundry basket in living room
I think we can all agree that one thing we need is more time to do things we enjoy. Perhaps you need more time in the day to take care of yourself. I do! I took time to put lotion on after a shower maybe once or twice a month in the year after having the twins. No shame in my game, man. It was survival mode. Now that I’ve started on this journey, I now have time to lotion. You’re welcome, hubby.
What should I declutter first?
Now, I still don’t have much “free” time. When I chose where to begin, I knew that starting in the most-used or visible areas first would have the biggest impact on my morale. When you start with a shelf in a closet in a guest room….you do all the work and then feel like nothing changed in your daily life. I wanted immediate results. Also, quite frankly, I wanted my family to also notice and give me the accolades I so deserve. For me, that would be most impacted by paring down our toys. If you are starting this journey, trust me. Pick a place/type of item that you find yourself cleaning over and over and over.
I know I’m not the only parent in the world dealing with too many toys. It certainly feels that way though, when you see glimpses into other people’s tidy homes. Blocks and science kit pieces and action figures covered my sons’ floor in their bedroom. Baby toys covered the floor in the living room and dining room, despite me putting them back on the shelves and baskets several times throughout the day. Obviously I knew there were too many toys. I had several problems which paralyzed me, however:
Few opportunities to work on decluttering long enough to complete the task
Guilt over missing out on money if I didn’t sell a lot of the items
Guilt over the idea of not sorting the toys well enough prior to donating (making sure all the pieces were there, sets were together, etc)
Fear of making my children sad
These are all valid concerns! Nobody wants to be responsible for a child’s tears when the toy he picked out at the thrift store is missing half of the pieces. It would certainly be nice to make back a few dollars on toys you spent hard-earned dollars on. Plus, what if your child is scarred for life to no longer have that toy that they forgot existed? But wait! Don’t lose focus of why you want this to be over quickly! The ongoing cost to your quality of life may be enormous if you let it linger. Free yourself!
Get it over with
I had several false-starts with our toy situation. At least twice, I went in with big black garbage bags and scooped up toys that I said I would pull back out to sort “when I had time” so that I could know what could be sold, what could be given away, and what was garbage. This helped the boys’ room stay clean. But, imagine this, I didn’t ever have time to sort those toys. They sat in the garage, and inevitably, came back into the house a few at a time with the help of two nosy boys.
To move forward and finally see some relief, I had to get over the idea of making money from these toys. For me, with my specific situation, it was not practical. The few times I did list things for sale, the commitment of time to follow up with interested parties, packing all four kids up to meet people in a safe location and not mess with the sacred nap schedule, was never worth the few dollars I would earn. I’m not exactly rolling in dough, either, but even so, it was really not worth the time.
I finally decided to get it over with. My husband had a day off, and I asked him to play with the kids for a few hours while I did a declutter of the toys once and for all. I sorted into the following categories: toys to keep, toys that could still be used by a child, and those that could not. The ones we kept had a place to live in the boys’ room. Those that could went into bags to take to a local homeless shelter. The rest went into the garbage. I loaded them into my van, and dropped them off.
Boys’ room a week since the last pickup
Was it life-changing?
If you consider that since that day, I have not spent more than a minute every week tidying up my sons’ room, I shout a resounding YES! I can’t tell you what a relief it is to finally see a difference. It gave me the confidence that I can one day have a home that I can keep up with. A magazine worthy home? No. A blog-worthy home? Probably still no. A home that doesn’t overwhelm me. Yep.
If you clicked on the link to this post, I’m guessing you’ve got a lot on your plate and you are overwhelmed. Or the things on your plate have consumed you to the point that you wonder if the memories of being able to get it all done with time to spare are just delusions stemming from the exhaustion and overwhelm that is your daily life. Perhaps you are a looky-loo, hoping to get a glimpse into the world of the disorganized.
Either way, I can help. If you are like me, we’ll both know we aren’t alone. I am a card-carrying member of the “desperately trying to balance all of the things I am expected to do” club. I swing back and forth between guilt for feeling overwhelmed and feeling like shaking my fist at the world while yelling I CAN’T DO IT ALL!”. If this is a foreign concept to you, stick around, because over the next few weeks I will share more about how I came to this place.
Breaking down my excuses
Here’s the thing. I know that I am living a common American experience. However, every once in a while I meet someone who makes me realize shamefully that they are doing it all. I mean, come on, Lisa! What is my family supposed to think about me when they see that you get dressed nicely EVERY DAY, and prance around clear floors, figuring out the family’s itinerary a month in advance?
Okay, okay, I suppose it is a good thing that some of you out there have it figured out. Maybe Lisa doesn’t have twins, or can afford a house cleaner, or didn’t have a big life-uprooting change recently. My life may not be just like hers, but I am SO ready to get a handle on things. My aim isn’t to be just like Lisa (who is fictional, by the way), rather it is to be the best version of me that is possible at this time in my life. So, I found some experts (hello YouTube!) and using their experience, deducted the most critical areas for me to focus on. The sources for most of my inspiration:
Our Tribe of Many focuses on large-family logistics, meal planning, and more.
The Secret Slob breaks down a popular cleaning routine/system.
The Secrets to Success
I’ll go into more detail below, but here’s what I see:
Manage expectations– Depending on your situation, you genuinely might need to remove things from your plate. Or if it’s mandatory (like feeding your kids), adjust what that looks like. With the ebb and flow of life’s stages, things might be difficult at times. If your expectations are appropriate, things won’t weigh on you so heavily.
Systems– Be strategic about certain routines and habits to create time and space for other things. Once we do something enough times it becomes automatic, and no longer uses brainpower. I need every ounce of available brainpower right now.
Declutter– I primarily mean clutter, but this can also apply to social commitments, time wasters, and so on.
Focus on the goal– If you don’t know what you are aiming at, you’ll probably never hit it. When overwhelmed, you may lose focus on anything but what’s right in front of your face, even if its not important.
I’ll stop with four, because I’ve got things to do, you know. Courtesy of the twin toddlers, there is a mound of snack discards on my dining room floor, taunting me from my bedroom.
Snack Time Aftermath
Managing Expectations
This is something I have found to be very difficult. Logically I know I need to do it, but in practice I find myself measuring myself by extremely high standards that fit my OLD life. The one where my husband didn’t work long night shifts and where I worked outside of the home and had half as many kids, and the two older boys went to daycare. In those days, I received praise at work then went home and had ONE meal to make. The house was still neat because nobody was in it all day. Now, things have changed, and I need to re-prioritize.
I must be mindful every day to be sure that I spend energy on the most important things first. If there is any left over, then I can choose to fit in extra things. My priority items are 1) The kids’ health and happiness 2) Creating a home environment that facilitates comfort and creativity, and 3) My own health and growth. I’ll write more about each of these things in separate posts.
Systems
The executive assistant in me LOVES to create systems. I love to follow systems. My inability to execute these plans at home baffles me every day. Why can’t I, you ask? I’ll tell you why. They are 7, 5, 1, and 1 years old. No matter what I choose to work on, they are busy undoing the work from the previous hour.
So, since I’m not going to run away to live alone a beach house where I can organize to my heart’s content, I need systems simple enough the kids can learn too. I imagine their teen years will be more manageable if I train the slovenly habits out of them.
Simple systems- what are those? To me, at this current stage of life, it is as simple as expecting shoes to be taken off by the front door. I instituted this rule a few months ago, and I can’t tell you how many minutes a week this saves. No more last-minute “Mommy, do you know where my shoes are?” as we head out the door. I remind the boys every once in a while, but it is now an automatic habit.
Declutter
My mind jumps to decluttering, because in my world, when I think about what extra stuff is getting in the way of feeling peaceful in my home, it’s our overwhelming abundance of belongings. My kids are WONDERFUL and I enjoy spending time with them. I am not the least bit lazy and spend hours cleaning each day. When I look around at the end of the day, however, you’d never know. The toys I put back on the shelf at least three times lay strewn across the floor. Random clutter resides on every flat surface. Overwhelmed doesn’t quite cut it when describing the feeling I get when I see it.
Toys on Every Surface
I can hardly blame the kids for not knowing where to put things, because frankly, I’m not sure there is a place to put some if it! I have started on a decluttering journey, and though I’ve only gotten a small (yet profound) taste of the benefits so far, my heart wants this on grand scale. Am I the only one sick of shifting items around during the day…items that are useless or damaged or just have no permanent home?
Focus on the Goal
My goal is to get my home and our schedule into a place where it does not take me hours each day to keep it tidy. Our home will be calm yet joyful and we will have what we need but not overwhelm ourselves with “stuff.” I will spend less time managing the home’s “inventory” and therefore have the time and space in my life for what is most important. My family will play and learn and grow together. I will be overwhelmed with peace.
Imagine that…can you? It’s been a while since this has felt possible, but I’m starting to see it! What are you goals? If you’ve reached yours already, please comment and share how you got there or how it’s changed your life. There are many of us out here just trying to get a handle on things, and your success lets us know it’s possible.
