I gave myself a free pass last Thursday.

On all of my other days off in the history of this house, I’ve spent some time cleaning and last Thursday, I gave myself some time to be free from everything.



Now, don’t get me wrong, the house wasn’t in total disarray but I like to thoroughly clean the floors at least once a week.  I take my little bucket and dish towel and go around scrubbing the floors.  It makes the floors look a million times better because even though our flooring is easy to clean, most of the time it really doesn’t look clean.  It always seems to have this nasty looking film on it & I’ve found that actually scrubbing it makes it look brand new again.  If someone has an easier solution to super clean laminate flooring, please let me know!

I’m also hand scrubbing the floors to up my Fitbit steps, but that can be our little secret, right?!
Anyway…so the thought of scrubbing the floors on a Thursday was totally out of the question.  Besides, why should I scrub floors when I could be watching Marcella on Netflix?!
So I watched Marcella & took two naps & was generally proud of myself for being a sloth.  My husband came home from work & I was still feeling pretty confident about my choices that day.  Before he got in the door, he coerced the neighbors into the yard & I went out to greet all of them.



“How about a cookout tomorrow night with the neighbors after work at our house?” My husband asked me.  I said that it was a great idea.

So much for my unclean house & lazy day.

When we went inside, I gathered my husband and supplies and got down to work.  It’s weird how I can live in sloth mode but when company is coming in less than 24 hours, it’s cleaning time.  I got rid of that laziness really quickly and turned into the clean bee.



I guess I just needed some cleaning motivation!  But if you ever have the choice between cleaning & watching Netflix, you should totally choose Netflix, unless someone is coming to your unclean house in the next 24 hours! 

Even though my free day got interrupted, I think everyone needs a free pass once in a while!

Paper clutter is the worst.  It starts creeping in my home & before I know it, I’m up to the ceiling in papers!  I finally decided to take some action to significantly reduce the amount of paper clutter in my life & I’m sharing my tips for getting rid all the paper with you today.  Oh, & it’s incredibly easy too!  You can start implementing it right now!

But first….confession time.

Paper clutter has been a nuisance in my life for quite some time.  I swore up & down I wouldn’t do it, but I actually moved a huge basket full of paperwork to our new house.  I mean, who wants to move papers?!  I could justify it by saying that they were important papers, but the truth is, I really don’t know.  Store ads from 6 months ago were mixed in with important paperwork & ain’t nobody got time to sort through all of it, so off it went to the new house.

Somebody had to make time to make sure this never happened again.

Besides being a buzzkill hanging out around the house, paper clutter is just simply chaotic.  A chaos that can be wrangled in with this 1 simple step:

Throw it away!

Now, I’m not talking about your important paperwork or your best friends wedding invite.  I’m talking about all of those unnecessary papers that just somehow show up at your house.

Another confession…

As much as I love the internet, I’m not huge on online bill paying.  I still like to receive a paper statement in the mail.  I know it’s probably adding to the clutter, but I don’t care.  This is why I’m not going to tell you to go paperless. 

But!

If you’re like me & still like to get paper statements, you can throw away the approximately 10,000 other papers that come with the statement, including the envelope if you want!  You know it’s never just the bill that comes in that envelope!  Throw those out & keep the bill.

Now, what should you throw away?

Everything that isn’t important or entertaining.

All of those credit card offers that you’re not going to accept in a million years?  Gone.

Advertisements for local services that you don’t need or want?  Gone.

Store ads at stores you don’t even shop at?  Gone.

Etc., etc. to infinity.

Now, on to the stuff you might need/want:

Deal with it!

Give yourself a time limit to deal with all of those things that you plan to throw away later, like the local newspaper, credit card offers or local services.  Once you take action on whatever paper item, then throw it away!  In our area, we get a free weekly publication in the mail & I had a bad habit of reading them and then hanging on to the paper forever.  Not anymore.  Once it’s read, into the trash it goes.  When it no longer becomes of any use, it’s gone!  Magazines are the same way.  Once they’re read, away they go!  There’s no use in holding on to something that doesn’t benefit your home space in any way besides to clutter it up!

Paper clutter can seem overwhelming, but with my simple tips & tricks, you can reduce the amount of clutter in no time at all!

What are your best tips for getting rid of paper clutter?

Since purchasing our house at the end of November, my life has went from being fairly boring to super busy. Trying to keep up on the housework at two homes has been very challenging. For a while I was just completely overwhelmed by it all! I didn't know where to even begin. Then, one day I had a burst of energy and began doing several things around the house. It was then that I set a goal of trying to complete at least five extra tasks a day. Some days they're small tasks like making the bed or cleaning the litter box. Other days I've cleaned both bathrooms from to top to bottom or scrubbed the kitchen floor. Just getting started was the difficult part for me and now that I try to accomplish five extra things a day, it makes cleaning a little easier for me. It has quickly become my #1 cleaning tip.