Dear FlyLady,

I finally understand the “secret” behind routines.  When you do something regularly, and get into the habit, there’s always more time.  If you decide to spend 2 minutes clearing your nightstand (and you know from experience after learning from FlyLady that it only takes 2 minutes), you find things like your best hair clip that you might have been searching for the next day, and you have time to go put them away.  If you try to clear that same nightstand under pressure, when guests are coming over or when you’re missing that particular hair clip, you not only don’t (think you) have time (2 minutes) to figure out what’s there and where to put it, that collection of objects there becomes kind of hardened — you look at it less and less because it’s clutter, and seems more and more overwhelming.

I also finally get the urgency of decluttering!  I am always decluttering, but what it really has been is organizing things into different bags and different piles and then running out of time and leaving them there, in every hallway and doorway and closet.  So I think I’m always decluttering, but not enough is leaving the house.  I need to JUST GET RID OF STUFF!  I’m finally going to do the 27-thing-fling every day.

Your fan,

Cathy