Explaining The 9 Daily Habits To A Clutter Free Home

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You have seen the post of the 9 Daily Habits To A Clutter Free Home. Do you understand what each of them mean?

Today I Am Explaining Each of The 9 Daily Habits

I am starting out with a poster of the visual and then one for the specific 9 Daily Habits. From there I will explain each habit.

Are you ready?

 

 

9 Daily Habits To A Clutter Free Home Explained

 

If you look at these 9 Daily Habits To A Clutter Free Home, you will realize many of the habits fall under ‘life skills’. These habits are meant to keep you  grounded. We all need to eat and have clean clothes. Our bathrooms need to be clean and organized in order for us to get ready for the day and end of our day.
There will be times things don’t get put back or thrown away. We need to spend 15 minutes resetting for a better tomorrow. The 9 Daily Habits are meant to keep you focused on the ‘present moments’ living one day at a time. Soon they become automatic and take little time and effort to get them done. Let me explain each habit.

9 Daily Habits To A Clutter Free Home

Habit 1 – Get Dressed. Too many get hung up on this one right away. If you are retired, disabled, home school, work from home it is crucial you get dressed. (This will also prompt you to make your bed!) Prior to creating this system, I was a 5+ year pajama junkie trying to do FlyLady. She insisted we get dressed to shoes.
I didn’t think it was that important. I live with fibromyalgia and other health issues. I had gotten into a slump even though I didn’t realize it. After thinking I was doing her system successfully in my pajamas I really wasn’t. I focused too much on decluttering only to realize I was moving my clutter from one part of my home to the other.
FlyLady’s Habit of the Month for March is ‘Get Dressed to Shoes’. After a few years of moving my clutter around and realizing I wasn’t really getting anywhere, in March of 2011 I decided to take a personal public challenge of getting dressed. I posted a selfie on FlyLady’s Facebook page daily for 436 consecutive days for accountability. I can’t begin to tell you how my world changed! Today over twelve years later I continue to get dressed.

What have I learned that will help you?

First of all I realized I had too many clothes! It made it hard to decide what to wear. I just came out with an E book called Too Many Clothes Nothing to Wear; Getting Out of A Hot Mess. It is filled with great information to help you understand why you have too many clothes and nothing to wear and steps to get a wardrobe right for you.

The Beginning Was A Struggle

At first when I began the challenge I was struggling what to wear each day making the challenge harder.

Light Bulb Moment

Then, a light bulb went off! I had read about Steve Jobs and how he wore a black turtleneck and black pants. He didn’t want to be making decisions like what to wear. Instead he focused on Apple becoming what it is today. I decided I would create a daily uniform that would be my ‘go to clothes’.

To make a daily uniform for myself I had to create the criteria. They would have to be comfortable clothes for my sensitive skin due to fibromyalgia. My bottoms had to be elastic waist because of fluid fluctuations with fibromyalgia. I couldn’t have anything binding.

In the winter I found a comfortable bra and underwear for my foundation. The bottoms had to be elastic waist pants or yoga pants. The tops had to be extra soft, no visible tags and easy to roll up my sleeves for washing dishes.

In the summer I wear sports bra with a tank top and biker yoga shorts. I have a few short sleeve shirts I can put on if I have to run to town. These ‘go to’ clothes have a special place in my closet and I created a drawer for the rest of the tops and bottoms.

I decided I didn’t want to have to decide what to wear every day that took lots of thought. I wanted to be able to reach for a top and a bottom along with my undergarments and I hang them in my bathroom for my habit 8 Lay Out Clothes. For myself, I cracked my code and you can too!

Please Don’t Get Hung Up On The Shoes

Please don’t get hung up on the shoes. I have to wear shoes. I have high arches. I have shoes that are for indoors only and that solved that problem. If you can do a home keeping system without wearing shoes, more power to you. It isn’t possible for me. I have a pair of Keds Lace Up Shoes (affiliate)I wear and they work great. In the summer I wear Clarks Sandals (affiliate) inside the house and Sloggers Garden Shoes (Affiliate) for outside. I can easily slip them off and slide into my sandals. Get creative like I have when it comes to shoes.

Habit 2 – Swish and Swipe. You are already in the bathroom getting ready for the day. Why not swish your toilet and swipe your sink? Make it tie into getting dressed. This habit take less than a minute. I have learned to associate 2 tasks and it makes it easier.

We aren’t going for deep cleaning. (We do this when we do the zone work.) I used to dread cleaning my bathroom! I decluttered it and only have the things I use daily on the bottom two shelves with the other in small boxes I covered with wallpaper to store things on the top shelf.

The biggest tip I can give you is to have your toilet brush handy and have paper towels along with a multi-surface cleaner (Affiliate) and window cleaner (Affiliate) for  your mirrors. I can’t begin to tell you how much easier it makes this habit! Some members use multi-surface wipes (Affiliate) to make it easier. Remember it is just as important to make these habits easy to do as doing the actual habit.

Habit 3 – What’s For Dinner? Before you leave your bathroom decide what you will be having for dinner so you can take the meat out of your freezer. Meal planning helps this habit. I live alone. How I decide what’s for dinner is I ask myself what kind of meat do I want and then decide the vegetables. I always have a salad to go with it. I eat pretty simple making the age old question easy for me.

I also have a handful of meals I like to eat handy for when I get stuck.

Here’s A Tip!

Plan to have 3 ‘go to’ meals with all of the ingredients to make it in your cupboards, fridge and freezer. That helps a lot.

If you haven’t noticed, preparation makes the 9 Daily Habits go so much easier.

Habit 4 – Load of Laundry. If you are beginning your 9s or resetting them, it is important that you begin with small loads of clothes. Why? This habit has five steps. They are 1. sort 2. wash 3. dry 4. fold and 5. put away.

It is better to do one load of clothes making sure you get all five steps done than to do two to three loads and they just sit in the laundry baskets.

Put a load of clothes in after you have taken out the meat from the freezer for dinner and then sort your clothes and start your wash. This leads into habit five.

Habit 5 – Tidy 15 Minutes. While the washing machine is going, you can easily tidy up for 15 minutes. What I have learned to do with this habit is go through my home tidying up or pick up put away. I find this to be very helpful to make the rest of the eight habits go better.

I use my zone work to declutter. Each of the five zones of the home are focused on one week in the month. You can reboot your laundry into the dryer before you do that.

This is also the time where I get my weekly habit for the day done. I also spend 15 minutes each on the zone and monthly event. A load of laundry from start to finish takes a little over an hour to do leaving time to do weekly habit, zone work and monthly event.

Habit 6 – Make Dinner Early. I cannot stress this enough.  In order for the rest of the habits to be completed, making dinner early is key. Other benefits are better weight control, less heartburn and better sleep. Try making a few crock pot meals each week and notice the difference. Another option is to set a daily alarm that says time to start dinner.

Lastly, in order for the next habit to be done, while you are making dinner early, fill your sink up with hot soapy water and wash. dry and put away as you cook. There is plenty of waiting time to make this work. While you are at it, keep the stove and the areas around the sink cleaned. The goal is to have everything washed, dried and put away that you used to cook your meal. After the meal, all that is left are the dinnerware you ate with.

Habit 7 – Shine Sink. I am going to repeat this again. Before you begin cooking your meal, always fill your sink up with hot soapy water so you can wash, dry and put away as you cook. Keep the stove clean and the area around the sink. All that is left are the dinnerware you ate with. Most have dishwashers and it is easy to place them in there right away.

Then you can drain your soap water, rinse the sink and wipe it dry. Some use windex to shine it. Myself, I use CLR Stainless Steel Cleaner (affiliate) three times a week. The rest of the time I wipe my sink out with a Microfiber Cloth. (affiliate) It is the best thing I have found. I have very hard water.

Habit 8 – Lay Out Clothes. Before you sit down to watch your favorite television show, movie, reading or some hand craft, go to your closet and drawers and choose the clothes you will be wearing for the next day. I wrote an E book Too Many Clothes Nothing To Wear; Getting Out of A Hot Mess.  It explains the reasons, the history, the evolution of clothing, methods to declutter, creating an essentials wardrobe and having ‘go to’ outfits.

Creating a uniform for yourself will help with the day to day activities. Use the energy you save for other things. I put my clothes on a hook in the bathroom. The next morning it prompts me not only to get dressed but swish and swipe my bathroom, decide what is for dinner and then put a load of laundry in the washing machine.

This then prompts me to have a 15 minute Tidy session which is usually a pick up and put away. As I do this, if there is something I run into and ask the question, “Why do I have this?” If I don’t know, it will go into the trash or if it is donatable I will place it in my donate box. While the laundry is washing you can also do your weekly habit of the day, zone work of the week and monthly event of the month in between rebooting your laundry into the dryer. Most know what their plans are for the coming day from planning your week on Monday.

Habit 9 – Launch Pad Ready. It is simply a fancy name for ‘Where are your keys and purse?’ What about if you have something you need to take with you to work or items to return on errand day. Create a space to have these items corralled together making it easy for you to get out the door and onto your day.

If you work from home, home school, retired, or disabled, have an area where you always put your keys and purse in the same area. You can also use it for whatever projects you may have for the coming day. The idea of having a launch pad is for you to make a quick transition from being home to working or errand day and meeting up for lunch. Nothing is worse than not being able to find your keys once you are ready to leave.

Conclusion. I hope this gives you a better understanding of the 9 Daily Habits To A Clutter Free Home. These are my ‘go to’ daily habits to make my home run smoothly. I can’t even begin to tell you all the benefits I have received from creating Marilyn’s Way System. Even if I only get 6 of the 9 habits done, I consider myself a success.

When the day ends I let go of it and have sweet dreams of tomorrow. The benefits for myself have been I am able to garden, work a part time job, take care of my mom who is in the nursing home, work out at a fitness center three times a week, Secretary for the church I belong to and now I am on the Town Board for my town. In addition I run my closed group Marilyn’s Way, have this website, and write e books.

Thinking back over twelve years ago when I was living in my pajamas I could not even visualize all that I am doing today. My attitude toward home keeping has improved by 3,000%! I am not sure if I will ever love home keeping. Instead I have incorporated it into my life. With it being automatic, not much thought is needed. There’s no negotiating. If I want my days, weeks, months and years to go well, I must choose to practice the 9 Daily Habits To A Clutter Free Home.

The most important thing I can tell you is to do the habits in the same order each day. They don’t have to be the order listed if it doesn’t work for you. It just has to be your same order you do so they flow from one habit to the next without much energy in doing it.

Give them a try today by taking the 3 Day Challenge

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4 Comments

  1. Hi Marilyn,
    It’s Indeed a great joy to be here today, I am via DBS Inner circle.
    There 9 tips you mention in this post is really worth following!
    I am going to share this with my wife! 🙂
    Also I am bookmarking it for my future share and read.
    Keep sharing.
    Best.
    Philip

    • It is great to meet you! Lesly Frederici does a great job with daily blog share! Yes by all means show your wife this if she is interested and if she would like to join the Facebook group here is the link http://www.facebook.com/groups/marilynsway

      Thank you for showing me how to set up my Avatar. Is it showing up on your end? It looks like it is on mine. Thank you for commenting.

  2. Fibromyalgia can be really debilitating – I wish you well! Lots of great tips in this article. Can I add two more? What I do is have all the cleaning materials to hand in each place I need them regularly – eg in bathrooms and kitchen, plus a little basket for taking them to rooms where I don’t want to store them eg bedroom and living room. I’ve changed from a multi-surface spray to vinegar in a spray bottle I bought specially for the purpose – so as to be greener and cut down on chemical stress too.

    • Yes fibromyalgia can be very debilitating. There was a time where I was bedridden for a few years and slowly worked my way out of it. It was LOTS of hard work too. Having said that, I refuse to let fibromyalgia to define me. Today I workout regularly to the best of my ability and focus on doing my best for me.

      Yes! Instead of a caddy with all the cleaning supplies in it, I keep a set in the bathroom, kitchen and in my laundry/porch. What a game changer that has been!

      Because fibromyalgia is such a high maintenance disorder affecting your central nervous system with the brain over sensitizing the pain signals leaving the receptor gates open, I needed a home keeping system that I could manage. I took out all of the repetitive things and then 9 Daily Habits are actually Life Skills.

      Too many programs focus too much on decluttering and not enough on a daily routine. I remember decluttering and finding myself moving things from one side of my home to the other while the dishes, laundry and paperwork piled up. So I went to work studying systems and trying different habits until I got the ones I have selected. I shared them with my friends and then created a Facebook group and then a website.
      My Facebook group Marilyn’s Way http://www.facebook.com/groups/marilynsway is now over 9 years old with 4,600+ members and is a wonderful group of ladies. Thank you for commenting!

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