About me
I went back to full-time work when my daughter was 18 months old. The house was full of stuff, I was exhausted with broken nights and I felt completely inadequate to the huge task of working full-time, collecting my daughter after work, then cooking and putting my daughter to bed. You’ll notice there’s no housework included in that list and it showed! Over the years the clutter accumulated. I was barely keeping up with the washing let alone with any other form of cleaning. Far from being a welcome haven at the end of the day my home weighed heavily upon me and I found myself happiest when I wasn’t there.
Meanwhile my sister Sally was at that time a stay at home mum. She was decluttering and she kept on telling me, ‘Just declutter for 15 minutes!’ I thought that it was all very well for her to talk given that she wasn’t working outside her home and also that she clearly didn’t understand the scale of my problem since 15 minutes would achieve little compared to the mountain of work involved in bringing my home and my life back to some semblance of order. Finally however, I gave in and wondered what I could declutter in 15 minutes that would give me the greatest benefit. I decided I would empty out my handbag on the grounds that I used it every day, it was always a battle to find things in it and it was heavy to carry around. I felt so good when I had done this and the benefits were so immediately apparent that for several months I just kept on decluttering small areas of my home in 15 minute bursts. If I couldn’t finish the area I just came back again when I could. Gradually I came to understand the power of small actions repeated many times and finally understood that my sister had been right – always hard to admit!
That was just the start of what has proved to be a life-transforming process that has turned me from helpless victim of circumstances to someone who thinks positive and takes action. If I can do it, then so can you! We’ll be blogging here regularly about how to achieve a happier home and a happier you so do come back and see us!
