Clearing the “Fall Clutter”

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Fall is my most favorite season!

I absolutely love the cooler weather, the changing colors, decorating my house for fall, making our favorite cold-weather foods, and preparing for the holidays.

However, I DON’T love all the extra clutter that the Fall season seems to bring.

Have you noticed this too?

One part of “Fall Clutter” is all the extra school papers, homework assignments, hot lunch forms, permission slips, backpacks, lunch boxes, home notes, and school supplies.

But even if you don’t have children in school, there are still all the committee meetings and group events that are starting back up; the year-end paperwork companies will soon be mailing out; the gorgeous Fall decorations that tempt us everywhere we look; and let’s not forget the mass amounts of holiday shopping ads, fliers, emails, and coupons from every store within a 100-mile radius!

It’s ALL Fall Clutter!

It’s clutter in your house, clutter in your schedule, clutter in your mind… and if you don’t have a system to deal with it, this clutter will spiral out of control {and continue spiraling throughout the holiday season and into the New Year}. No, I’m not trying to be the bearer of bad news, I’m just saying that I’ve seen it happen many times before!

 

So as the Fall season gets underway, here are a few SIMPLE things you can do to prevent all that clutter from taking over your home and life.

1. Find AND use some sort of daily planner or calendar.

Those of you who have been reading this blog for awhile are probably rolling your eyes wondering if I will ever stop going on and on about daily planners. And I hate to disappoint you, but I probably won’t!

I would be so completely disorganized if I didn’t have one central place to write everything going on in our busy lives; and after years and years of faithfully using a daily planner, I can attest 100% to it’s effectiveness!!

This is the planner I’m using now, these are my FREE Daily Routine printables, and this is the planner I’m going to try for 2012.

2. Have a system for moving things OUT of your house.

No matter where you live, who you live with, or how big/small your house is, I guarantee you will have an influx in the amount of “stuff” that comes IN to your house during the next few months. Because of that, you’ll also need a good system for moving things OUT of your house! 

This may sound obvious, but you might be surprised at how easy it is keep bringing more and more in but never take the time to move anything out.

So make a goal right now that whenever something comes IN to your house, you will also move at least one thing OUT of your house. This goes for clothing, decorations, toys, games, books, electronics, kitchen items (not food), mail, paper, etc. etc.

If you need some encouragement, check out these posts:

• Simple Tips to Get Organized for Fall
• A little incentive to help you purge {from my very own closet!}
• Simple Tips to Lighten Your Load
• The 80/20 Rule — read this is you have trouble purging!
• 10 Quick De-cluttering Projects
• Quick and Simple Fall Cleaning – because it’s so much easier to clean while you declutter!

3. Plan ahead.

Yes, I know — I’ve said this a million times too, but planning ahead is one of the simplest and easiest ways to reduce the amount of clutter you have in your life. 

Here are a few ways you can start planning ahead:

MEAL PLANNING: I recently implemented a new meal planning method and it has really helped me to more easily plan our weekly and monthly meals, stock up on the appropriate groceries, and stop wondering “what’s for dinner” at 5:00 every night!

HOME MAINTENANCE: Here’s a quick list of 10 Simple Ways to Prepare Your Home for Fall. And even though it’s not Fall just yet, it’s still good to start thinking about these things and planning ahead.

HOLIDAY PLANNING: It’s also a great time to start thinking about the holiday season. The next couple of months will go quickly {I promise} and anything you can do NOW to plan ahead will save you lots of stress and unneeded clutter later!

Personally, I have a goal of getting all our holiday shopping done before our baby arrives {in mid November} because I already hate going to the malls after Thanksgiving and I can’t even imagine how much less enjoyable it will be with a tiny baby!

4. De-clutter your schedule.

If you haven’t done this already, you should sit down and decide what committees, groups, etc. you and your family will be involved in this year. Every group needs more volunteers, more members, more donations, more, more, more; and if you’re a nice person, you will want to give and get involved in everything.

However, all these groups require an investment of time and/or money. And unless you have unlimited amounts of time and money, you will have to say “no” to several of those requests — which is much easier to do if you’ve already decided what you will and will not participate in.

Due to the addition of two new International Students and a baby on the way, Dave and I decided (several months ago) that we would NOT participate in many extra committees or groups this year. We are each on only ONE committee at church and Dave is helping out with Student Counsel at school. Other than that, we’re saying “no” to every other request — and it feels wonderful! 

5. Tackle one extra project each week.

All of the ideas I’ve mentioned so far are ways to prevent MORE clutter from entering your home and life. They are all great way to manage and control the clutter that will bombard you over the next few months… but they won’t do much to eliminate the clutter you already have.

So I encourage you to make a list of the areas in your home that bother you the most {kitchen counters, linen cabinet, entryway, master closet, toy room, etc} and then tackle one of those areas each week. You could choose to do a little bit each day or set aside one afternoon and work for a longer period of time.

If you start now and faithfully stick to this plan, you’ll have successfully decluttered 11 areas in your home by Thanksgiving! 

 

The Fall is a very busy time of year, but by implementing a few of these ideas, I think you’ll be able to eliminate the bulk of “Fall Clutter” from your home and life!

What are your worst sources of “Fall Clutter”?

Do you have any other tips and ideas to deal with “Fall Clutter”?