Dear Friends,

Why do we allow our perfectionism to creep in even when we are only going to do 15 minutes worth of decluttering? You know what I am talking about!!! That nasty little voice in your head that says, “I don’t have time right now to declutter!”

I can’t stand those words. They are the foundation of perfectionism and procrastination.

“I DON’T HAVE TIME” IS A LIE!!!! We all have the time! It is how we use it that makes the difference!

Do you want to know why we won’t allow ourselves to declutter for 15 minutes? This is not the way we have always cleaned! We couldn’t just clean off a shelf in our closet; we had to pull everything out into the bedroom floor so we could see an empty/perfect closet and start over! Do you see how this perfectionism monster hurts us every day? When was the last time you made a bigger mess cleaning out the closet than it was in the closet. In our SHEness it was taking over our bedroom. At least when it was in the closet; you could shut the door. Our perfectionism paralyzes us.

This is why I want to teach you how to clean out an area without it being an all day or all week disaster that you have to kill yourself over. I watched a Born Organized person clean out a drawer once. I was just blown away by how she did it. She dumped it in the floor. I almost died. That was an even bigger mess that made me crazy. I remember an email I got once from one of our FlyBabies. She was on a message board for housecleaning and she asked how to dust her bookshelves and books. The Born Organized person on the message board told her to take all her books off of the bookshelves and dust. This is what she did. I got the email that said HELP!!!! What do I do now, the books are everywhere. I had to tell her that dust does not get under the books and to use a feather duster to get behind them and on top of them. Eventually I talked her through putting the books back one shelf at a time. My sweetie would die if I messed up his library by pulling them all down at one time.

SHEs will follow directions but only to the point that they get overwhelmed. Then they toss their hands in the air. I don’t ever want you to feel this way. I want to empower you with your little timer. It not only gets you started, but it tells you when to quit. We have a rule that we cannot pull out more than we can put back in an hour. Most of us have busy lives and sacrificing an hour for cleaning out a closet is such a waste of precious time.

I want you to be clutter extractors not a one woman demolition team. This means go in a pull out things from your closet and put them in a give-away bag or the trash. You will need a box and a garbage bag to do this. Your 15 minutes is not complete until the trash is in the garbage can and the give-away box is in your car waiting to be dropped off.

Do not allow your perfectionism to get in the way of your new way of decluttering! You will not make a bigger mess decluttering this way. The clutter will go away without you having to live in total CHAOS while you do it.

Go set your timer and extract the clutter from a drawer. Even those of you at work can do this in your work area.

FlyLady