You can accomplish more than you think in just ten minutes. In fact, Diane Quintana and I recommend using ten-minute blocks of time to take care of many routine household tasks. Today my 10-minute task is the top of my chest of drawers.
The chest of drawers in the picture is in my spare bedroom. The door to this room is always open so as I walk down the hall, I see this chest of drawers every day. The “stuff” that has gathered here has appeared within the last month. There’s no question where it came from and now it is time to make it go away.
Office
During the month of January, I reorganize and declutter my office. The spare bedroom besides being a place for guests to stay, is an overflow storage area for my office. As I worked in my office, items that were to go elsewhere ended up being dumped in my spare bedroom.
Clutter
To add to this clutter, Diane and I are in the beginning phases of the distribution mode of our new product. It is a deck of cards, Organize Your Home 10 Minutes at a Time and the assembled product is now on my spare bed and chest of drawers.
I am also in the process of reorganizing the closet in this room and some items were pulled from the closet to go elsewhere. Then there are the random items like a card I want to keep, a disc of pictures, and my coffee mug.
Chest of Drawers – Top
Just for fun, I pull the card from our deck with the heading – Chest of Drawers – Top.
I set my timer for 10 minutes and do the following; step-by-step.
- Take everything off the top and place it all on the bed.
- Group items as to where they will go.
- Dust the top.
- Replace the items that belong there.
- Put the decks of cards in the space I have made for them in the closet. Then I take the archival paper up to the attic. I drop the card and disc into the dresser drawer with other memorabilia, pick up my coffee mug and take a sip.
Done! It took the full 10 minutes since I also took the archival paper to the attic and dropped it into a box.
In the interest of full disclosure, before starting on the dresser, I had to finish my closet so there would be room to store all those boxes of cards.
Then I put some flowers on the dresser as a celebration.
In Summary
The key point of this blog is to realize that it is easy to let an area become cluttered. But when the clutter hangs around and begins to annoy you, realize that it only takes a short amount of time to declutter a small area. Taking the 10 minutes or less to clear a surface really can affect the way you feel. Now when I walk down the hall past this door I will smile instead of grimace.
I challenge you to look around your home and find one annoying area that you could declutter in only 10 minutes. Then just do it! I would love to hear your results and see your pictures. Send them to me on our Facebook page: Ask the Organizers Diane and Jonda. Feel free to ask for suggestions if you get stuck clearing your area.
You will feel so much better when you see the clear space that you have created!
Jonda S. Beattie, Professional Organizer owner of Time Space Organization, and co-owner of Release, Repurpose, Reorganize. She is based in the Metro-Atlanta area. As presenter, award-winning author, as well as a retired special education teacher she uses her listening skills, problem solving skills, knowledge of different learning techniques, ADHD specialty, and paper management skills to help clients tackle the toughest organizational issues. Jonda does hands on organizing and virtual organizing. For more of Jonda’s tips connect with her on Facebook.