Those of you that are tidy and organised, tell me your secrets NOW, please

[IllegallyBrunette]

Wether it be some fab piece of storage equiptment or some extra special cleaning product, I want to know.

Oh, and the first person to post 'cleaner', will get thumped, ok

BIWI - definitely

(or figure out a way to make him useful...)

I shouldn't say that because DH is actually very useful. He is the one who keeps the house tidy and he does all the washing. And he empties the bins.

He's not beautiful though ...

Ahhhh BecauseImWorthIt he sounds GORGEOUS to me!!!

nooooo tommy don't get the book, it was v good until half way in and now she is advising me to get frilly covers for jam pots... I have probably distilled it sufficiently.

Seriously, it has helped me to approach housework in the spirit of creating a 'lovely home' rather than some miserable chore which I know I'll be doing the next day, and the day after.

I honestly don't think there is one 'magic' system or storage solution. You've just got to keep chipping away. But fabulous storage of course helps.

I've got an attractive box

BTW, paperwork, IKEA do really cheap filing cabinets, which don't look too bad. You can file stuff until the drawer is full and then start chucking it out.

I keep my house tidy and i do the filing once a week, so instead of having a 'cleaning' day - i generally do a bit each morning...

I'm ruthless when it comes to chucking things too. If I cannot forsee myself needing it, it goes and I live with the consequences later!

I am always de-cluttering my stuff. The only trouble is that DH does not....so there is still a big load of his stuff all over the place. I am always telling him to sort it out as it drives me mad!!!

www.flylady.net is the answer for me! It is an American system so you have to excuse that - but there is a yahoo group you can join and it sends you emails with reminders. Her mantra is "you can do anything for 15 minutes" - simple but true!

For paperwork (why is there SO much generated by ONE family ffs???!)

This isn't perfected yet but it's helping....

I have a load of box files & cardboard folders for bills/statements & boring stuff you HAVE to keep.
Make sure you open a letter, pay it/put the date in the diary/answer it.
Throw away the junk that comes with it(in the recycling )then put it in the file/box for that subject.
Still needs filing properly & yes I know it's double handling but I can get it out of the way quicker as our storage stuff is upstairs.

I try & empty one of those folders every week into it's proper file upstairs & then re-use the folder.

I also religiously put all magazines /catalogues I want to read in the downstairs loo. It's the only time I get to read them!!

Go round the house, room by room getting all the things that don't belong in that room and dump said things in the appropriate room. (hallways and stairs are not appropriate dumping grounds).

Get the hallway sorted. Coat hooks, shelves, shoe racks, hat/glove box, bag rack for school bags/PE kits. Thats where a lot of crap goes. Not chucking coats onto the baby swing which goes unused in the living room

Sort out each room one at a time.

Its the season of school fairs. A great time to get rid of all your rubbishy old toys AND look good infront of the PTA! Don't worry, my kids will buy them, so noone will know you have sent in a bag with 50 knackered Buzz Lightyears, because the will be in my toyboxes.

A blanket box for dressing up. Doubles up as table in our living. Filing cabinet has bit of fabric thrown over it and is tucked by the side of the sofa with a lamp on.

Ohhh, lots of replies

Just going to dish up dinner and bath the kids and then I will settle back and read them.

Wow, looks like there is an answer then - declutter ruthlessly & tidy up constantly! Think some of us were hoping the answer would be some complicated plastic box from Lakelands for £19.99, not hard work .

For those of you who do declutter all the time, how do you feel when you realise you need something that you threw away a few days ago? That's my worst excuse for keeping something - replacing it would cost money & be bad for the environment

Does anyone ever dare throw away their dp's clutter, I wonder? DP has banned me from doing this because he knows how easy I would find it to be ruthless with his stuff!

lostinlace - I sorted out my partner's wardrobe and removed 12 black bin bags of clothes that I would not have wished him to be seen dead in .

He did go through it, but 99% of it went straight to recycling.

That was two years ago, and he has binbagged another 6 or 7 since.

My god Anna 4 black bags would hold ALL my DH's wardrobe!!!

Temting VERY tempting

I met harman/rickman.
She introduced to met to boxes. I spent a day sorting out the shit useful stuff under my bed that used to get dragged out a lot and put it in labelled boxed, cheap from argos, cardboard ones.
Since then my bedroom has never been so bad that i couldnt get into bed, regular occurance before.
I also go through the drawers and declutter and am ruthless with kids shit.
i do get tidy, but it lasts only 5 mins and exhausts me
F~*king HATE housework.

Spero hit the nail on the head. I haven't accepted that tidying up is a constant state. I do a HUGE tidy up, and expect it to stay like that with minimum effort.

I can't believe that less than a month ago, I filled a builders sized skip and yet my house still looks shite.

I am the same as you NAB, I either don't have enough storage or it is the wrong sort.

I saw some lovely baskets in Primark today, but couldn't buy them as there is nowhere for them at the mo, due to the crap.

I am alot better with my bedroom since I decorated it, but it still could be better.

God, too many I's.

I just invested in a bunch of those see-through bags that you compress by hoovering out the air. They are great for my "thin" clothes that I can't bear to part with and clothes that don't fit the boys right now. I also use them for spare bedding - everything except 2 sets of everything we use. They save room and help to keep things organised - you just write on the bag what is in there and the fact that they end up quite stiff makes them easier to manage than floppy bags of stuff IYSWIM. They are all stashed in a top cubboard.

The other thing that helps is living in a house of boys who hate shopping - I don't get to go out and buy nearly so much useless tat

I once threw away 5 bin liners of DPs old clothes.

Do it in stages - vacuum bags under the bed for a year. Then into bin liners in a cupboard, then out for the bin men when he's away.

He has never asked for his worn through pixie boots circa 1982!

Foxy my DH went into meltdown when I threw out 5 pairs of dead sexy woollen long johns he'd inherited from his GRANDAD!!!!!

He was keeping them for when he has cold night duty shifts.

I told him he could keep the 2 pairs of Damart ones his mother bought him when he left home........yes I know sad sad sad.

"Everything has a/its place" ... then spend the rest of your life rushing backwards and forwards trying to return the stuff to it

Right, have read all replies through and had a good think and decided that taxckling my paperwok needs to be one of the first things I do, so I am going to buy some box files on friday, one for bills etc and one for school/brownies/guides stuff etc.

This thread is brilliant, I have to go and do some chores but will be reading it later.

BTW Flylady has transformed my sister's life. She's stopped talking about it in a slightly nauseous cult like way but she has such great systems now and the kids really help more and she has better storage.
They do have a humungous house though and she does finally now have a cleaner but she works 4 days a week and has three kids so I don't know how she'd clean the house as well as do everthing else.

But it was flylady who seemed to change her.