Hi All,
I'm a teacher who is on a reduced schedule for about four months a year, mid-December through mid-February and mid-June through mid-August. I also have a REALLY cluttered home. In the past, I've had some success with setting myself a goal of doing a certain number of hours of decluttering during my periods of reduced work. I set one overall goal (usually 40 hours), then chip away at it in smaller increments of time. Some days I aim for an hour; others for four hours (with breaks!). I basically use flylady's timer method described here, but with longer periods of time than 15 minutes:
http://www.flylady.net/d/getting-sta...ng-15-minutes/
This past summer, I stumbled a bit and didn't finish that 40 hours until a few weeks ago (January 2021!). So I just started this winter break's 40 hours last week.
Though clutter is still an issue, over the years of focusing on decluttering, I've also discovered I need to spend time on making my home comfortable and pleasant which involves putting in time on things like repotting plants into pretty containers, picking out a nice bureau scarf and a "jewelry tree" to make the bureau in my bedroom pretty, and finding a nice tray for the containers of salt, pepper, and olive oil by my stove. I've learned that decluttering is not all it takes for me to finally enjoy my living spaces - figuring out what's pleasing aesthetically to me is super-important too - and really fun.
In any case, since I started these batches of 40 hours of decluttering in winter of 2017, I've made a lot of progress. My home isn't perfect, but it is MUCH less cluttered and MUCH more comfortable to me than it was four years ago. And recording my progress here has really helped.
I know for some people setting up a home is kind of second nature, but I've always struggled with it and always lived in cluttered, uncomfortable spaces, so these batches of 40 hours have been a real breakthrough for me.
So last week, my daughter and I spent an hour repotting a bunch of plants and cleaning up our backyard - which is like a room in our house now since we are entertaining out there these days. And yesterday, I did another hour rearranging our storage shed and putting some things away in there (Christmas stuff). So the total so far is 2 hours.
In any case, thanks for "listening" and for the encouragement so many of you have given me over the years.
And, as always, if anybody else wants to join in with a decluttering/homemaking goal of their own for a certain number of hours, that would be great!