FlyLady.net: Your Bedroom is not a Graveyard!!!

I know how every one of you think, because I am one of you. I have been there and done that. When you do your stash and dash, all the bags of stuff you gather, end up camping out in your room. Under your bed, stashed in the closet, piled on the dresser and chest of drawers and Piled on your bed. Now listen to me.

YOUR BEDROOM IS NOT A GRAVEYARD FOR STUFF THAT HAS NO HOME! if you don't stop this it is going to be your grave.

This is the room that is the heart of your family and your marriage. It should give you joy when you walk in there and fill your heart with peace. It is where your babies were conceived and you love your husband. If you are single, it is where you snuggle in for the evening with a good book to fall asleep. This is the room that you wake up in and go to sleep in. It is imperative that this room be the cleanest in the house. From this moment on, you are not allowed to pile stuff in this room. Do not fold clothes in this room. (we all know what happens there. we fold them but never put them away)

Warning: This is tough! If you get defensive, I know I have hit the nail on the head. If you email me, It will only reinforce my feelings on this subject. I have warned you many times that I have a no nonsense approach and this one is stronger than most. So listen to this and don't complain. I don't allow whining.

I have counseled many women about this room. I have found over the months that when this room gets clean the rest of the house falls right into place. It becomes a haven from the chaos in the home; Your hiding place. I have also found, that when this room is clean. I mean no clutter piled up, that most women rest better and have more energy. I also feel that when we are sick, this room can promote healing or keep us sick. When all that clutter is everywhere, it is so hard to feel peace. Clutter lays guilt on our heads, we beat ourselves up about it, and we make ourselves sick with the stress it puts on our system. Get rid of the clutter and you will see the veil of stress and I believe sickness will leave your body. Guilt is a terrible shadow to live under.

So many women have never felt peace. This is my main wish for you. To find the peace I have. I don't want to hear, that you have this disease or that, and that your clutter didn't cause your illness. Stress is the main cause for illness in our country and the world. If we relieve the stress we will all be better off. BTW we are not our diseases. We can learn to live with and find peace in any situation. It is a mindset. What you think about you bring about, I learned this from Rita Davenport many years ago. If you think you are a picture of health even if you may be sick, chances are you will feel better. There is no sense feeling sorry for ourselves. Learn to live with what you have, and don't let it get you down. I have a dear friend that has many problems, but she has learned to adapt and she calls herself handicapable. She always sees the glass half full.

We have all heard that the love of money is the root of all evil, Well I have a new twist on this. Clutter(mind or home) is the root of all illness. Physical and mental. It is a vicious cycle. The more clutter we have the sicker we get and the less we want to pick up and put away. Then the less we pick up the more clutter we have and the sicker we get. It is time to quit giving clutter control and nip this in the bud. Start putting things away when you have finished with them. At least stuff will quit piling up.

I have a challenge for you. If you have a desk in your bedroom, I want you to find a new home for it. We know what our desks look like, stuff piled to the ceiling, stuff that needs to be done and is calling to us. I am not telling you to do this right this instant. I want you to think about this for a while and come up with a plan.

Some of you have been obsessing about these zones. Quit. For now we are working in the ones I tell you to. So that we are all together here. If you try to do to much too fast you will get tired and burn-out! Our goal is to set up routines and stick to them. NOT A SPOTLESS HOUSE. This will be the result of our goal.

Zone 4 is our master bedrooms, bath and closet. If you don't have a bath, consider yourself lucky. LOL

I want you to ask yourself a few questions about this room in your home.

1. Do you sleep here?
2. Do you want the room to be restful and inviting?
3. Do you want do get up in the night and not bump into things.
4. Do you have trouble closing your Drawers?
5. Can you find the clothes you are looking for?
6. Do things fall off the closet shelf and hit you?
7. Are you afraid to look under the bed?
8. Are clothes piled to the ceiling on the chair in the corner?
9. Is your cedar chest filled with stuff you will never wear again?
10. Can you walk between the bed and the wall or are there several piles of newspapers, books, trash and clothes?
11. Do you have to crawl into bed from the foot of the bed because there is no room to walk?
12. Is stuff piled so high on the dressers and nightstands you have forgotten what they look like?
13. Are the Cobwebs becoming moth collectors?
14. Are the dust bunnies reproducing in the corners and under the bed?
15. Can you see out your bedroom windows?
16. Can you close your closet door?
17. Have the spiders decided to winter over behind your bed?
18. If you open the drapes does the room fog up from the dust in them?
19. Do you know what color your carpet really is?

Now that you have asked yourself these questions, I can hear you saying, Where do I start?

First I want you to realize that this is an on-going process. You may or you may not get the whole room cleaned. That is not our objective. We are focusing on our bedroom this week and any thing you do in this room will be an improvement over the way it was last week. Each month we put this room first in our minds. All I am asking is that you do a little tiny bit each day. 15 minutes, 30 minutes I don't care. You can even do the 27 FLING exercise. Just do something every day over and above your morning and before bed routines. One time I cleaned a whole room by putting away two items at a time. But I did it every day. If I were industrious I would tackle that job, 2 time a day. Put it in your routines if you have to.

P.S. If you are ready to do Crisis Cleaning in this room then by all means tackle it. Only after you have completed you morning routine. But don't pull out more than you can put back in an hour. Use the same system and just get it done as fast as you can. Start at the door and move around the room, putting away and throwing things away. Some of us need to feel a sense of accomplishment in a completed task. We don't work well when we can't see the end. It takes all kinds to make the world of SHEs.

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