Five Steps for Couples to Conquer Clutter

Is the disorganization in your home causing stress within your family? The piles around the home, the chaos and distractions caused by being disorganized are all a stressor. Do you have arguments when you can’t find your keys or your favorite shirt or your passport? This stress can be alleviated just by getting organized! Do you and your partner both suffer from being disorganized? How important is this to you to finally tackle? 

Did you grow up in a disorganized family where the skill set was never learned, or did you grow up in an organized home where everything was done for you and the skill set was never transferred? If you are both disorganized, you’re most likely overwhelmed, stressed out and anxious and you shut down at the thought of getting organized and ultimately nothing gets accomplished. 

Here are five steps to conquer your clutter as a couple. 

Talk it out. Schedule a time where you and your partner can sit and discuss what’s bothering you about the disorganization in your home. Is it the piles of paper on the dining room table that have to be cleared every time you have guests over? Does the door to the spare bedroom stay shut until a guest stays the night and the room has to be dismantled and items shoved into a closet? Is it the fact that you can never find what you’re looking for when you need it? Discuss and brain dump. Write down the areas in the home that are causing strife. Delegate projects to tackle and decide if you want to tackle together or individually. Break the process down. Tackle one area at a time. 

Stop the blame game. You may get upset at your partner’s piles in the bedroom and he/she may get upset about your pile on the dining room table. You each have areas that have to be dealt with, so don’t blame each other. Put a plan into motion to tackle your area and then watch the energy change in the home. It will motivate your partner to now tackle their area. 

Tackle it together. When you’re discussing the disorganized areas in your home, talk about who will be handling which area. If it’s your closet, your partner will not need to be with you, but if it’s the garage or kitchen and you both like to cook, you may both want to be involved in this process. Remember when creating your organized systems, you’ll want to both talk about how you function and create systems around that. 

Respect your partner’s belongings. If you are organizing a room alone and come across your partner’s items, don’t make the decision to toss something without their permission. Grab an empty bin and when you’re going through the room, add their items to the bin for them to go through. Give them the bin and set a date when this bin will be tackled. 

Assign responsibility. Once you get organized, now you can discuss chores you like to handle in the home. Do you like to do the food shopping, clean the bathrooms or do laundry? Does your partner like to cook and clean the kitchen or run errands? Talk about what you enjoy doing in the home and take responsibility for those chores. There won’t be any confusion as to who handles what tasks in the home.

If you’re moving in with a partner for the first time, have the discussion before you move in about if they are organized or not and start talking about how you want to function in your home. If you’re planning your family and a child will be arriving in the home soon, this is a great time to get your systems in place in the home. Once a child arrives, it’s one more person and all that comes with them in the home. You’ll need to have great systems in place to be functioning stress-free in your home. 

If you’re disorganized and it’s causing stress in the home, it’s time to declutter, set up working organized systems in your home that work for your entire family and create the streamlined, peaceful home you’ve always dreamed of having.