simplifying my life

[ionesmum]

We have a tiny house with no space and so much stuff! Books mostly (like I ever get time to read!) but also ornaments, clothes etc. I need to simplify things so that dd has some space for her things! Also I'm aware that I'd like to lead a simpler life in general - I'd like to spend less time faffing about in the kitchen and more time having a life. Any ideas, anyone?

Have a clear out, either a charity shop or if you're in need of the cash a car boot. Go thru all your clothes and everything that you haven't worn in the last 12 month (this is flexible if dd is still young obvioulsly!)either sell or donate. Same with books. If dd has her own bedroom a visit to ikea or similar can provide lots of ideas on storage for her things. Faffing in the kitchen can be cut out by good planning for meals, and a once a week shop. This is such good advice from some one who has clothes that they haven't worn for 4 years but will one day get into (fat chance!), can hoard like no one else and has just come back from a last minute dash to Sainsburys which should have been for bread and milk but cost £33! I do get sorting out moods occasionally!

Out of desperation, I hired a lady to come to my house for 4 hours and discuss some suggestions for simplification, organisation. I couldn't afford more than that--though some people hire her for a few weeks, or even permanently, and she gets their whole house in order and keeps it that way. At any rate, a few random tips she gave me are:
-invest in plastic hangers for your clothes, because wire ones make your cupboard all snarly and confused.
-if you have, as I did, lots of loose recipes from magazines hanging around, buy 3 different notebooks with plastic inserts: one for starters, one for mains, one for puddings
-in order to cut down your time in the kitchen, make a handy list of 25 or so easy recipes that take no more than 10 or 15 mins preparation time, and resolve to cook only those for the time being. You can cook more diversely when the kids are a little older and you have more time.
-get box files for any papers that must be saved (old bank statements, tax info etc) and which are bursting out of ordinary file folders.
-if someone not particularly close to you gives you a gift that isn't at all to your taste, acknowledge/enjoy the generosity of their motives, and then take the thing to the charity shop. If it's from someone close to you who might visit and expect to see the gift displayed, put a label on it with their name, store it somewhere with other gifts of this kind, and put it out when that person comes to visit (i.e. MIL or someone).
-Finally, don't be afraid to throw things out/give things away. This lady convinced me that clothing styles change and never really come back in the same way, sothough I hate parting with clothesI have gotten rid of a lot and haven't missed them at all. Also if you're saving any odd useless bits and pieces (for example, I have an old glass shower door that I keep thinking I might need to use it someday) get rid of them. If you ever DO need the thing again you CAN buy another. It's not the end of the world!
If I think of anything else I'll add it later. Hope this helps a little, ionesmum, and addresses the kinds of things you were talking about.

ionesmum, also I'd recommend starting with one cupboard/corner of one room and working your way around the house. Breaking it into chunks makes it a bit more bearable. Agree about files, just did 4 years worth of filing/tidying in a week and it feels great! Being ruthless is hard for me too but I'm so glad I was with some clothes and things, I really am never going to wear them again (size 8? I don't think so ) and now I have a bit more space. Good luck. Also people here have recommended The Fly Lady before although I haven't looked at the site. Will see if I can find it and post a link. Good luck!

OK The Fly Lady is here

Aaaargh! Not the Fly Lady!!!

Thanks for all these replies, this is just the sort of advice that I needed, in fact I will print this off to keep me going! I know what I'm supposed to do but it all seems so massive that I am finding it hard to start! I will definitely go to Ikea, I already store dd's clothes that are too big for her in their boxes under our bed. Storage is a massive problem, our bedrooms are in the eaves and so we have hardly any wall space against which to put furniture, and our sitting room has five doors leading off it so no space for bookcases etc! I am a terrible hoarder, too, and I am very good at coming home from Waitrose with a car full of shopping and no ideas about dinner! Wickedwaterwitch, am off to check out the site that you recommend, thanks for finding it for me. Thank you lilibet and ExpatKat, too, I will try and put some of your tips into practise this afternoon!

I try to remember what William Morris said - something like Do not have anything in your home which you do not know to be useful or beleive to be beautiful.
It's a good theory anyway!

Better find a new home for DH

crystaltips

If I got rid of dh I'd also lose the vacuum operator, the person who fills up the dishwasher and the person who sorts out the recycling and puts the rubbish out!

ionesmum - lucky you!

I would have one less mouth to feed ... resulting in fewer dishwaher loads, less rubbish to dispense with and the ability to sleep on the diagonal without getting poked in the ribs

crystaltips - dh is v. useful but he can't cook. He's good in bed though

Fionn - I've tried to apply W.Morris' maxim to my life before. The problem is that I think that all my stuff is useful or lovely or will be useful etc.

Has anyone actually tried The Fly Lady? I've hadf a look but I'm not sure...I think that If I start getting e-mails telling me to put my shoes on in the morning dh will think I've gone mad.

don't do the fly lady, its utterly irritating. The only thing that I do from it is it use the timer when I tidy - i.e I think right, I've got to tidy the kitchen, I'll set the timer for 20 minutes and tidy madly until the buzzer goes. It helps, otherwise I tend to drift mindlessly from one job to another and never get any of them done.

sobernow

Ok, I'll admit, I tried the fly lady but I just couldn't cope! She wanted me to empty my in-box every day - I have emails from months back in there! My account keeps telling me to delete mail but....well, y'know!

Anyway, I just found it too intrusive. Too much mail, reminders several times a day and I finished up just deleting them straight away, or saving them to read later - which of course I never did! And it is a wee bit patronizing. I mean I NEVER put shoes on in the house, and to tell me I need them before I can be organised and effective is just utter rubbish. I unsubscribed after a couple of weeks. It just wasn't for me. There was some useful information and ideas, but to my mind it wasn't worth all the added hassle. Having said all that I know some people swear by her methods - I guess everyone's different

ROFL Sobernow

After posting that link I had a good look round the Fly Lady site. Don't think I could handle the emails either but I reckon I could try some of her suggestions without subscribing. Life is definitely too short to shine your sink every morning though and mine is plastic anyway!

Sobernow . That'll teach me for boasting!

Thanks for all the Fly Lady feedback, I will spend a bit longer looking at the site for tips. This afternoon I packed up a box of books for Oxfam How's that for a start?

BTW I've just learned how to do smileys and I'm going a bit mad with them.

I enthusiatically joined Flylady, hoping she would be my saviour from clutter, but I couldn't stand the emails, directed them to a sub-folder and of course never read them! As www says, it's worth having a lookie around the site for some tips, but I think Expatkat's ideas are fab, just the sort of condensed advice I needed - thank you!

I used to belong to Flylady and agree that the emails are overwhelming. I didn't shine my plastic sink but I made sure there was nothing in it or on the draining board each night and psychologically it was good to get up in the morning and see it all clean and tidy. Some other ideas are good, such as the 15mins timed declutter and especially clearing the Hot Spots.

Thanks!

I'm intrigued by all these posts about Flylady - now I'll just have to go to her webpage instead of shining my sink.... (which naturally I do every day)