First though, I thought we’d kick off the day with some bathroom clutter solutions. This is one area where I have almost no issues. I have just one bathroom in my house, but % wise, it’s the biggest room in the house. Seriously, you could fit a full sized bed in there. We have a toilet and tub of course, and also a laundry area with double stacked shelving above, and a huge wide floor to ceiling storage closet behind the bathroom door.

Most people are not so lucky. The bathroom tends to be the smallest room in the house, and all those supplies don’t help. One great space saver is consolidation. In other words, get a bathroom / beauty / clean routine and stick to it. For example, if space is limited in your bathroom, you can save a lot by figuring out which products work for you, and sticking with them.

Find one hair care routine and stick to it. Oodles of shampoo bottles really just clutter the tub. 15 different facial care products only fill your drawers, and make it hard to find what you need. I’ve seen bathrooms so full of bottles, jars, make-up, and sprays that it boggles the mind. Are all those products really helping your beauty and health?

I do sometimes feel like fun care items (I like to make my own scrubs and other things) but I only make one new experiment at a time. Another perk of decluttering your personal care routine is that you’ll save time. If you continually follow the same care strategies, you’ll be in and out of that bathroom faster. Lastly, you’ll save money.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t keep some sparkles around for a special day, or buy some new soap on a whim; just so long as those whims are few and far between. You can further consolidate by combining product. You can use lotion with sunscreen to cut down on having both sunscreen and lotion. You can use washable washcloths instead of millions of cotton balls. You can even use shampoo as body wash. I found this one organic lavender shampoo and you can use it for tons of stuff - I once even tried washing clothes with it, and guess what, soap is soap is soap. If you have kids, they can use your shampoo. Special kid bath products are overrated; just be careful of their eyes.

What does your bathroom routine look like? Is it insane, and taking over the bathroom, or do you have control?

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• Get Rid of Mental Clutter
• Start Moving Out Mental & Physical Clutter

If you’re blocked by mental clutter, if it’s a reason why your day to day life and spaces feel cramped and messy, then start moving the clutter out of your head. Yeah, if you’re dwelling hardcore, then seek some professional help, but often some simple moves are enough to clear out basic mental clutter and allow you to focus on what’s important in life; including the physical clutter.

Ways to move the clutter out of your head:

Start blogging: Of course I’d say this, but it’s a good way to get clutter out of your brain. I have a personal blog where I’ve vented about lame co-workers, stupid parents I’ve met at playgroups, and my major pain in the %$# ex mother-in-law. While venting on my blog doesn’t always solve my issue, it removes it from my brain, and I can quit dwelling. You could technically keep a paper journal; it’s much the same. However, blogs have perks that paper journals don’t…

• No paper clutter. I used to keep paper journals and believe me, after 15 years they became the clutter. Online = no paper mess.
• Often readers will offer suggestions to a problem or simply say, “Hey I’ve been there too.” Paper journals don’t offer this.
• There’s just something releasing about telling strangers about some issues. For me, with stuff like the ex MIL issue, it makes me feel a little mean, but kind of happy to vent about her in public.
• If you want to vent about really serious stuff, and get advice, you can keep a secret blog. I have my general blog where I vent, but there’s some stuff you shouldn’t be telling everyone (at least not with your name attached to it) so I keep one secret blog. It’s public, but no one knows it’s me. If you have issues to deal with, but don’t want your current friends, co-workers, or an ex to know, keep a blog without your name on it.

Learn how to start a blog.
Burn your mental clutter:

I have friends who have done the whole, make a list of issues and then burn it project. Some of them swear by it, for problems large and small. I’ve never tried it, but it could work for you. Just use fire safety precautions please. No bonfires on the living room floor, kay.

Head to a forum or group:  

There are tons of forums for everyone. If you have an issue, it’s likely that someone else does too, and is on a forum chatting about it. I don’t tend to write about my own issues on forums (remember, I like blogs), but during my custody problems related to my ex and my son, I’d go read about other people’s issues at custody forums. It made me feel better to know others are dealing with the same things. You can also find real life offline groups to join. Ask your local health care center or provider for info, or type a search into the web that includes your area, “group,” and group topic.

Make a problem solving list:  

If your mental clutter has a lot to do with say, budgeting, make a list of how this can stop being a problem. Start being proactive instead of dwelling. Make a list with goal items such as:

• Start keeping track of incoming and outgoing cash.
• Get a part time job to pay off extra bill.
• Make a bill paying schedule.

Each of the above goals can be broken down further, into easy steps. Once you have a solid plan, it becomes easier to quit worrying about the situation.

How do you remove mental clutter?

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If you have a stereo and television set-up both in your space, put them together. Electronics tend to look bulky and big bulk scattered about is more cluttered than all the bulk together - if that makes sense.

Another reason this is a nice space saver is because of cords. Cords running everywhere looks terribly and they’re a safety hazard. Keeping all the electronics together gives you more control of your cord situation.

Bonus tip: I think most electronic equipment is pretty unsightly - if you can store it all behind something, a shelving system with closed doors, or a long TV table with a nice cover over it. If you really need your speakers out of a shelving unit, consider wall mounting.

Do you have a lot of electronic equipment in each room?

[image via stock.xchng]

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However, there’s another important first step than many miss, and it’s super simple too.

Define your spaces:

Before you do anything else you need to define your space, or spaces as the case may be. Defining your space is vital because it allows you to decide which items belong in the space, and which can go elsewhere. If space is at a minimum, then space defining is even more important, because there’s no room to lose or spare.

For example, if I was to define some rooms at my house, here’s what I’d do. Grab a pad of paper and pen and park myself in each room and take some notes, and the end result might look like this:

Living room: Used for TV watching, reading, sometimes eating, and one of Cedar’s play spaces (although his toys don’t stay). Also, Cedar likes to dance in there and I’ll exercise with my exercise ball, which means we need empty floor space o’plenty.

Back office: Used for my FT work office, Cedar’s art project room, our homeschool project room, and my clothing goes in the big closet in the room.

Dining room: Used for prepping meals, eating, the fish live there, and sometimes we do art at the table, but it’s rare.

And so on for each room. After my initial list is completed I’d make some notes about the space, such as how much furniture needs to be in each space, for example, obviously at bare minimum the back office will need an art table, my desk, and some shelving.

Being VERY careful and thinking clearly and realistically can save you lots of time. I messed up my own planning when we moved into our current place. I had thought we’d use a corner of the living room or dining room for Cedar’s art station, but if I’d thought it through and measured some furniture, I’d have realized that plan was too cluttered. In the end, Cedar’s art station ended up in my office, but it started in the dining room. It was plenty of extra work to move everything around too - so I should have planned better.

By defining your space before each and every organizing project you’ll save time and trouble.

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If you’re thinking that AnywhereVault sounds like a great solution then you may be interested in some tips that can help you to maximize the service and make it even more useful for your home inventory needs. Bobbi, from AnywhereVault sent me the following cool tips. These are extra nice because they also give you a good idea of how this digital home inventory service works:

Create a video home inventory:

“A great way to quickly document your belongings is to create a video inventory. AnywhereVault makes it easy to create and have your video inventory stored somewhere safe within 30 minutes. Just stand in the middle of each room and span the entire room, don’t forget to walk over and open closets and drawers and span the video over the contents inside. Upload each short video and you have taken a giant first step!”

Create a detailed inventory:

“If you take the time to do a detailed inventory with AnywhereVault, you’ll instantly have reports of the total value of your belongings. This will help you determine the correct amount of insurance to buy to be properly protected. You will also have customizable reports at your fingertips, so you’ll be able to sort your belongings by category or location and will be able to quickly create a PDF you can email or print.”

Store your inventory somewhere safe:

Back to me - now, creating a video or even a detailed inventory is all peaches and cream, but it’s not very useful if you don’t store it somewhere safe. If you’re comfortable with digital storage, then AnywhereVault is a good solution (hence the giveaway). With AnywhereVault, you’re not storing stuff at your house, where a fire or other issue might damage it, you’re storing your inventory in a place that’s easy to access 24/7. Should something happen at your home or office, your personal home inventory is still saved and safe.

Learn more about AnywhereVault and enter to win a year’s subscription of this service.

[image via AnywhereVault]

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• Save Space by Dumping the CD Jewel Cases
• Where To Recycle CD & DVD Cases
• Where to find CD and DVD file folders and cases

Well, I did it; transfered all my CDs and DVDs to disk folders. There were some pros to this solution for sure.

• My DVDs and CDs collections have gone from massive piles to one nice tidy folder each.
• I’ve saved loads of space.
• My son seems to find it easier to put DVDs back into the folder than the cases.

What was my mistake?:

I sorely underestimated my collection size. I actually underestimated both my DVD and CD collection, but in varying amounts. I bought two 72 disk capacity folders; which I mainly decided on after just sort of looking at the pile of disks and estimating. Now, I don’t have 72 DVDs, although it’s getting up there, so frankly I could have gone maybe to 100-120 capacity. If we buy many more DVDs we’re in trouble, but for now it’s ok. The major issue was with my CDs. I didn’t think I had so many, because I mainly play records, I guess I assumed my CD collection was super tiny - like 50. Um, no.

I had way more than 72 CDs, a fact I realized after moving half of them too thank you very much. What to do? As luck would have it, I had another disk folder in the house, a huge one I use for computer disks. There’s only about 60 disks in there so I transfered them to the one I bought for the CDs and moved the CDs into the large folder.

Long story short - this solution rocks in terms of saving space and ease of use, however, count your disks before buying a folder. Estimating is hard.

Has anyone else done this yet? Transferred disks?

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See even more cool contests and giveaways.

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First name five mentally cluttering issues you’ve got going on. Some ideas might be:

• When your ex nags you, it really gets to you.
• You hate sending birthday cards, but do it anyhow.
• You hate your job - it just stresses you out (this is a biggie obviously).
• That mistake you made five years ago.
• Doubts you have about your abilities.

These are just some basic examples of things that clutter up your head, unnecessarily. You may say, “Wait, I need that job.” Yeah, you might, but some things aren’t worth the stress. If you really anguish over work, stop anguishing and start looking for a new job. It’s that hard and that simple.

Once you have your mind clutter list, choose one or two issues, and concentrate on solutions to rid yourself of them. It may be looking for a new job. It might be dumping that downer friend or seriously getting over an ex, but work at it. The best part is that you don’t have to work on all your mental clutter at once. That’s why you choose one or two. Make a list of why the issue should be taken care of. Hang that list up where you can see it. Coming soon, more ideas about how to actually work on one specific issue.

Physical clutter:  

Next grab a box and fill it with ten items you don’t need. Get them out of your house. We’ve talked about getting rid of stuff before, but if you feel cluttered both physically and mentally, don’t play around with deciding what goes where, just put ten things in a box and get rid of the box.

Moving out both bits of mind and physical clutter at the same time is one starter solution for when you’re feeling overwhelmed. Most people feel better with less physical clutter, which makes the mental stuff easier to deal with. On the same note, the less stress you feel, the easier it can be to clear the physical items. Addressing both issues simultaneously, is one solution that can help.

Have you ever made a list of mind clutter issues, in order to try and let them go? How did that work for you?

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CONTESTS TO ENTER!:

Of course here at Declutter It, we’ve got the Anywhere Vault Giveaway going on - if you need to get your home inventory organized, than this contest is perfect for you.

At Tree Hugging Family, we’ve got two contests going on and one ends soon.

• Win a Children’s Book — Think Green! Ends on June 22.
• Summer Scrub Down Contest - Win Natural Body Care Products! Ends on July 14th

Are you musically inclined?

Over at the Health & Wellness Channel my pal Angelique at Breaking the Mirror is having some musical contest fun with her, “Crazy Cool Contest!” You can help write the Breaking the Mirror theme song. One, this tune is really going to be recorded, and two, if you enter the best song line, you win a prize! Go you musical people you.

If you have kiddos then the Design a Trick-or-Treat Bag for ChicoBag contest is sure to be a hit. Plus, who doesn’t enjoy a little Halloween in June?

NOT CONTESTS - but still cool:

You know, I tried to gather some other contests, but it’s bleak, my timing is off, because there’s not any contests going on. So, as I surfed about looking, I found some other cool stuff to round out this post…

Why is Friday the 13th Unlucky?

Ooo la la - Vanilla Rose Ice Cream. I tell you, rose is not my scent of choice, but as a food item, roses rock.

10 Easy Healthy Changes You Can Make To Your Pantry - So here comes my disclaimer. Yeah, I’m linked in this post, but that’s not why I’m including it. It’s a great post with EASY steps you can take to be healthier - who can’t use that?

The whole channel did a theme day last week; the view from my window. I usually do weird things like play favorites on theme days, (although I doubt the channel knows this - well, maybe now they do), and on this particular theme day, this was my favorite window view. I would love this view. Very chill.

And in sexy cake news - Better Than WHAT Cake? Quit flinching, I hardly ever get to say things like, “And in sexy cake news.”

The Great Blog Off - Interested in what happens when a bunch of bloggers decide to blog nonstop for 24 hours? I mean, besides get loony… Here’s the scoop, “To celebrate the summer solstice (occurring this year on June 20, the first time since 1975 that it hasn’t occurred on June 21), taxgirl and the Business Channel, together with the Entertainment Channel, are participating in The Great Blog Off.” Both channels will be supporting great causes. Learn more here - and possibly stop by during the event and try to keep these bloggers awake by leaving fun comments.

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This post: Screaming Mimi To the Rescue - is from my little sister’s blog. Yup we both blog. This post is perfectly timed for our week of mental clutter issues, because it’s a nice (non-violent), sort of silly way to deal with your issues. So, even though my sister is a messy middle kid, she’s smart about mental clutter.

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