declutter – Joy Taiwo's Blog

Homemakers Challenge | Day 20

September 17, 2020Leave a comment

Hi,

This challenge is to motivate and encourage you to eliminate chaos and clutter in your home and transform it to the clean and orderly place it’s supposed to be. Anyone (especially those who are not naturally organized like me) can join no matter what day we are on.

TODAY’S TASKS

1. Declutter your wardrobe. Remove clothes that are worn out and ill fitting. Consider having a 10, 20 or 25 item wardrobe consisting of clothes you are confident wearing anywhere at anytime. Apply the same to your shoes, bags and accessories.

2. Take clothes that need to be mended to the tailor and shoes to the cobbler.

“Understate—or as Valentina said, ‘diminish.’ Let your face be more important than your costume. If you think you may be wearing too much jewelry, you are. Ask your husband how he thinks you look. If he says, ‘That’s a lovely dress,’ try again. What he should say is, ‘You look lovely!” – Joan Crawford

Cheers!

Homemakers Challenge | Day 19

September 16, 2020Leave a comment

Hi,

TODAY’S TASKS

1. Declutter your kitchen cabinets, freezer, refrigerator and pantry for 15 minutes (or less) each

2. Scrub your kitchen sink with scouring powder or baking soda. Flush with water and then wash again with regular dish soap. Your sink will be sparkling and smell fresh. Clean under the sink as well

3. Clean the four (4) sides of your cooker and all kitchen appliances (freezer, refrigerator, oven, microwave, etc) inside and out

4. Replace worn out cutlery, glassware and dishes with your best ones that you’ve been storing away somewhere. You have only one life, use your best things today.

“If you can organise your kitchen, you can organise your life.” – Louise Parrish

Cheers!

Homemakers Challenge | Day 7

September 3, 2020Leave a comment

Hi,

TODAY’S TASKS

2. Take clothes that need to be mended to the tailor and shoes to the cobbler.

“Don’t Tempt Yourself to be Frumpy

Throw out any clothes that are overworn, damaged, or unflattering. There is no excuse for holding on to bad clothes: they serve no purpose. Even if you live alone, you shouldn’t wear them. Just think, if you don’t own one frumpy outfit, then you don’t have to worry about ever looking frumpy!”

Excerpt from : “Lessons from Madame Chic: 20 Stylish Secrets I Learned While Living in Paris” by Jennifer L. Scott.

Cheers!

Homemakers Challenge | Day 6

September 2, 2020September 1, 2020Leave a comment

Hi,

TODAY’S TASKS

1. Declutter your kitchen cabinets, freezer, refrigerator and pantry for 15 minutes (or less) each

2. Scrub your kitchen sink with scouring powder or baking soda. Flush with water and then wash again with regular dish soap. Your sink will be sparkling and smell fresh. Clean under the sink as well

3. Clean the four (4) sides of your cooker and all kitchen appliances (freezer, refrigerator, oven, microwave, etc) inside and out

4. Replace worn out cutlery, glassware and dishes with your best ones that you’ve been storing away somewhere. You have only one life, use your best things today.

“Afterwards, they always had tea in the kitchen, much the nicest room in the house.” – Flora Thompson

Cheers!

Homemakers Challenge | Day 1

August 28, 2020Leave a comment

Hi,

It will be wonderful if you join me in this challenge! It consists of daily tasks and motivation to steadily improve your skills as a homemaker (especially if you’re not a naturally organized person like me).

TASKS
1. Declutter, clean and arrange your books (or bookshelf), documents, old receipts, papers, stationary and the likes. Basically, anywhere you put papers, stationary or books should be attended to. Time: 15 minutes (+ extra 5 minutes if you anticipate any distractions).

“The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life.” – Marie Kondo

2. Plan your meals for the coming week, make your grocery list and go shopping.

“Go to the grocery store and buy better things. Buy quality, buy organic, buy natural, go to the farmers market. Immediately that’s going to increase the quality of the food you make.” – Michael Symon

3. Plan how you will destress and have fun tomorrow, either by yourself or with family and friends.

“Even though you’re growing up, you should never stop having fun.” – Nina Dobrev

Cheers!

15 minutes Joy

August 19, 2020Leave a comment

Dear Father

My 15 minutes approach to getting things done around the house is really working.

Monday’s decluttering was targeted at the kitchen store (it’s actually meant to be a pantry but there is a load of stuff, e.g. a generator, in there that I have no idea when we will get rid of).

I did manage to get a full bag of clutter out. it consisted of old paper bags, dusty utensil packaging, broken mop sticks, etc.

That corner of the store is 80% neater now that I have moved out all the useless stuff.

There are still many tasks and chores I dread getting into though. Give me the grace to always say to myself, “15 minutes Joy, you only have to do this for 15 minutes today.”

Amen!

Your DD,

Joy Taiwo

I took my first baby steps…

August 15, 2020August 16, 2020Leave a comment

Dear Father,

Oh gosh I am so happy! Yesterday, I took my first baby steps to decluttering my house. I set my timer to 15 minutes at first, then added an extra 5 minutes to factor in potential interruptions. And those interruptions did happen (thanks to Lemuel hahaha).

In the past 24 months or so since we bought our bookshelf, we have only piled on stuff in there. Over 100 church bulletins, old documents, up to 2 years old receipts, empty envelopes, broken crayons, used-up writing pads and note books are just stuffed in there. The sheer thought of how long it would take me to declutter the book shelf has scared me from doing it for the past 10 months. So I gave myself just 20 minutes yesterday. Whatever I could declutter in 20 minutes would be just fine. No, it would be amazing even. I started and in 20 minutes, I was able to remove about 30 handfuls of not-really-useful stuff and threw them out. I finished just in time to go and rescue the beans I was cooking in the kitchen downstairs from burning.

Sure there’s still a lot of clutter in and around that book shelf. And that is why I am happy I have now planned to be decluttering that area (Book shelf and surroundings, desk drawers, cupboards with stationeries) every Friday for just 15 minutes (+5 minutes for potential interruptions). I feel more in control of that area of my house now. Oh, did I win at that bookshelf yesterday!

Yesterday was also grocery shopping day. Because I wrote down my list earlier, I was so focused at the supermarket and bought only things I actually needed at home. No distractions. No buying things I didn’t really need or forgetting something we needed at home. Plus I remember buying whole wheat flour for almost half the price of plain white flour (which I earlier planned to buy). That one was a double win! The whole wheat flour was cheaper and healthier than the plain white flour. Our pancakes next week will be healthier! This is the kind of focus I need hence forth while buying my groceries!

I have even started building my list already against next Friday. As items finish in the house, I am ticking them off my Pantry List. So by Friday morning, I will only need to review the list I have already slowly built throughout the week. Before yesterday, I would wait until it was time to go and buy groceries, then start going up-and-down the house to check what items were finished. How crazy! No wonder I almost always missed out things. Yesterday was not perfect but it was definitely 100% better than the day before.
Thank you for the wisdom and strength you gave me to do these things today.

Your DD,
Joy Taiwo.