Sandra Madeira

It’s been 3 months since I challenged myself to declutter or improve something around the house every day. Today seems like a good day to reflect on what I’ve achieved in March, how I am feeling about the challenge in general and how I am planning to tackle things in April.

Is the house looking clearer? Mid month it took a step back, but now it’s looking clearer again. I am still moving things around when I’m decluttering, but what I am getting better at is not putting items in areas that I have already finished decluttering.

How can I get rid of more stuff? I have thrown quite a bit away over the last month. I also have bags in my car boot ready to take to the charity shop; however due to the current situation with the coronavirus pandemic, where we are all having to stay in our homes, I haven’t been able to take the bags to the charity shop (and they are closed anyway). My car boot is therefore full, so I might have to put additional ones in my garage for the time being if they start to get in the way in the house. It’s not going to stop me carrying on with my current process though.

Am I on track? Yes. I’m continuing to make small improvements daily. It actually feels natural for me to do this every day now; it’s become a habit. Being at home every day, it’s easier to spot things that need doing around the house, so I just make a note for the next day.

Am I getting buy-in from the rest of the family? I did get a bit frustrated when all of a sudden all four of us were working at home instead of going out every day. This totally changed our routine and it’s taken a few weeks for us all to find a new way of doing things. At first I felt that a lot of it would fall to me, but it’s not really been that way. My husband has cooked more, and just over a week ago both of my daughters tidied their room and desks ready to do their school work from home. It was lovely to see.

What am I going to do in April? I will definitely finish the conservatory. I’m planning on taking a couple of days off this month so I will have some focused time for decluttering and will be able to move some bigger projects forward such as the spare room. It has recently taken a back seat due to my husband working from home in there. If the weather is nice, I will probably get outside and do some weeding as well.

What’s the feedback from other family members? My daughter mentioned that the house is looking nice and tidy. I really value her feedback and trust that she’ll tell me the truth as she’s usually quick to tell me when she doesn’t like something. She’s got lots of ideas for how she can organise and design her room as well once this ‘stay at home’ period is over.

The poor vacuum cleaner needed a bit of love and attention today, so I got some scissors and cut away the long hair and other materials wrapped around the brush roller. I do this about once a month otherwise it gives off a horrible burning smell.

Here it is all clean and it only took about ten minutes. It looks as good as new don’t you think?

90 day checkpoint

I can’t believe that I’ve been decluttering and introducing mini systems around the house for exactly 90 days. It’s harder to focus now that everyone is at home; however, I’m still making good progress. I’m getting positive comments from the rest of the family too.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra

I’ve been longing to get to the day where I have enough time and motivation to declutter our en-suite bathroom. Today was that day and this was the embarrassing mess that I was faced with…

I took everything off the shelves and placed them into an empty washing basket.

Then I sorted those items into the ones that I wanted to display and those that needed to be put away. Here’s the transformation…

I still need to find a place for the items that I didn’t put back. To be honest, I’ll probably just squeeze those into the cupboard under the sink for later sorting. That’s a job for a other day. It’s all about baby steps.

We have to remember that we’d never do anything if we planned to do it all in one day.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra

Now we’re at home all day, I’m trying to fit in the housework around the rest of the family. Whilst vacuuming the stairs (something I don’t usually like doing as my handheld contraption isn’t working) I had this urge to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n. What was the rush today?

Just like that, I changed the speed at which I was pushing the machine. I wondered why I hadn’t thought of this before. I have always rushed cleaning; trying to fit it around my working hours and cutting many corners (not ideal). I have never actually taken the time to get that piece of clinging fluff off the stair carpet, I just huff and puff and pick it up with my fingers. Today, I just went over the area slower, and low and behold all the dirt disappeared into the machine. Magic!

I’m going to clean slower as me more mindfully from now on. Hey, I might even do a better job.

I must add this bit in to show my girls’ appreciation… they actually said ‘the carpet looks so nice and clean’ and I got a thank you for cleaning their bathroom sinks the other day. Yes, I know that they could help, and they do sometimes, and will more in the future; however, right now, I’m enjoying the mindfulness whilst cleaning. With spa music in my ears today (sometimes it’s Mama Mia Here We Go Again or something else upbeat), I appreciated every minute.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra