My days as a working mom started off really rocky. It’s hard for any mom to adjust to working outside of the home and learn how to balance it all. Working moms tend to spend every minute at home trying to declutter your home. I enjoyed my work outside of the home, but quickly found myself drowning in all the responsibilities I had. I would joke that being at work was the easy part of my day and going home was the hard part. There is always some truth in the things we say and the truth was I was stretch incredibly thin. My home became a source of burden. I was too overwhelmed to enjoy my time not working with my kids because my time not spent at my day job was what I used to “catch up”.
Instead of taking my kids to the park on weekends, I spent them organizing our stuff. Attempted to make the laundry mountains rolling hills. Cleaning bathrooms and bedrooms were always on my to do list and took away my ability to be present with my family like they deserved.
If I chose to ignore my home I paid the consequences by falling that much more behind the following week. I found myself wanting to escape my home more than I wanted to be home. That is a really terrible feeling as a mom. Wanting to escape our space and time together because there was just so much I was never going to be able to catch up on made me feel very low.
Eventually I was able to come out from that lifestyle of constant overwhelm and focus on things that didn’t matter. I have made it my mission to teach moms who feel this way to change it for themselves!
Here is how you can start.
1. View it as a stranger.
Look around at all the things in your space and ask yourself what purpose those piles of clutter are contributing to your family. Are these things with a purpose? If so, do they serve a specific purpose for your family now? You can take this one step further by asking if these clutter piles and things in your home are adding value to your family. Answer honestly. What you discover will likely surprise you.
2. Next ask yourself what value the items in your home have.
I recently learned about something called the endowment effect. This means that the things we have in our possession become more valuable to us than they really are, simply because we own them. We are used to having them around which tricks us into thinking that it is much more important or valuable than it really is. Look at your things with a critical eye. Are those bags of half used crayons you never did that craft with really that valuable? What about those ten pot holders you never use? The 6 spare sets of sheets that smell like musky closet? If the value isn’t there and is taking up space and energy in your home, let it go!
3. Start purging!
For all these things you are seeing with a new perspective, it’s not enough to just recognize them as pointless or invaluable. Now is the time to start letting things go and declutter your home. Grab a bag or a box and load up all the things no longer serving you or your family. Much of this will be trash, that’s okay! Trash it. Donate what can be used by someone else, and that someone would pay money for. This part of the purging is the hard part. Choosing what stays and goes. The easy part of decluttering is following through and taking it away to your donation center! Always follow through! If you have a lot of junk, schedule a roll off dumpster from Discount Dumpster Rental. It’ll make decluttering a lot easier.
4. Purge some more!
Purging happens in phases. It uncovers layers of other clutter hidden within your home. You will do your first purge and get some relief, then you will start to notice other areas of your home that need attention as well. That is okay and that is normal! The goal is to stick with this long enough so that you have a home that works for you as a working mom, not against you and your down time!
5. Delegate the rest.
As you start to feel relief from your clutter you will gain more time and energy to spend with your family and however else you choose to spend it. It is totally okay to maximize this newfound time and energy by delegating other tasks within your home. Hire a housekeeper to do the few hours of deep cleaning you do on the weekends. Sign up for a meal service to help simplify your cooking. Invest in a mother’s helper to do errands and other tasks that don’t need to be done by you specifically but still need to be done.
Final thoughts
Working moms have an incredible amount of pressure to “do it all”. What we don’t realize is that so much of what we are doing is not necessary. We don’t need to spend our weekends to declutter your home. Then organizing, and re-organizing all the things in our home for the millionth time. It isn’t necessary to spend weekends in survival or catch up mode. There is freedom in using a critical eye with the things in our home, the clutter, and deciding that it is time for it to go once and for all!
Once I did I was able to work outside of the home AND have a home that worked for me. My home is a haven for my family and I. My time and energy is spent with who I want, doing what I want. I don’t sacrifice any more to have a life that feels good. I want that for all moms.
If you want more help to declutter your home that is sucking your time and energy join the free challenge, the purgeathon, here!
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