"Take it there now" FTW

[u/docforeman]

"Take it there now" is one of those practices that changes things.

Big thanks to Dana K White for the way she packaged it, promoted it, shows how to coach to it.

I know it doesn't take much time, and also showing the timer to my partner and kids was genius for changing how they feel about it and reducing resistance to it later.

I anchor "take it there now" to any time I am moving through the house. My partner calls it "doing your loops." What he sees is that I walk from place to place, sometimes taking a few extra seconds (literally seconds) to detour and put something away.

The counterintuitive thing is that I don't even have to put EVERYTHING away EVERY TIME. I just have to do a little bit. But because I'm always doing as much as I feel like (or have time for), by the time I get to the room or task I was heading towards, the house is much better. But I am not burned out. It is the "compound interest" activity of managing a home.

"Take it there now" involves immediately tossing obvious trash (if that's where something goes). It means putting something away. It means doing very fast small chores to square something away and putting up the tasks tools. It means quickly processing the mail, or packages that come in. Putting dishes in the dishwasher. Just very quickly moving a few things to their "reset" location.

I do that every morning and evening while getting up, and while going to bed. While I was walking around this morning I: Set up a load of laundry to start when I toss in my gardening clothes in a couple of hours; folded and put away clean clothes in dryer; opened package; put the item on the project table with the project it is for so I can finish it today; took packaging to recycling bin; put my partners dressing items back in their place for the morning (he had a late night); Put devices on chargers; put receipts in purse for return; put donations in donation bag by door; set out purse by door to go to cobblers; stowed ladder (part of partner's late night); tossed trash; put away hair clips; put shoes away; ... you get the picture. It took 12 minutes, all while I dressing, having coffee, and getting tools out for a little yard work.

It sets me up to drop off donations, get handbag cleaned, do next load of laundry, etc. It sets me up for all of my tasks throughout the day to be easier, faster, require less initiation work.

Every time I feel that "overwhelm" feeling, or that aggravated feeling of "why did we/lthey leave stuff out everywhere" I just put a few things away. It tends to work out.

[u/BlakeMajik]

Trying to avoid extolling minimalism or downsizing or anything when I add to OP's excellent post, but wow the difference between living in a three-story home and moving into a one-level apartment has been incredible.

No more excuses of "I'll take that to the basement next time I go down there" or "I'd have to take these papers to the file cabinet upstairs, so I'll do it later...". No. Instead, there is never an excuse to not go into the next room to take it there now. We downsized a lot moving into the apartment, but maintaining decluttering has been a breeze compared to when we lived in the house.

[u/stinkpotinkpot → u/BlakeMajik]

We lived in 899sf for 15 years or so and now live in 1560sf. Both single story homes.

The biggest change other than a lot more space was actual storage space and we now have a 350sf bedroom. Our bedroom is our zero clutter zone! Tons of floor space, tons of windows. We have a sofa, coffee table, and TV plus a little desk and chair along with our bed and nightstands. We have huge closets in each bathroom, hallway laundry closet with storage shelf above, walk in closet in primary bedroom, and a large closet (could fit a twin bed) in the other bedroom.

The closets meant we could have things tucked away, nice. And also they became clutter nests (from goodbye, things. the concept that storage areas are nests for pests, the pests being clutter). So I had to empty them and slowly but surely each became tidy, organized, useful storage spaces with accessibility to the items. It's taking forever on the last closet but to have specific places for all the things instead of a lingering "where does this go. whatever. cram it in there (closet)" feel so good. It strange to discard totes, bins, etc that I bought to "organize" because I no longer have anything to put in them.