Sometimes I think one of the biggest challenges in keeping a nice house is to deal with the daily clutter of dishes, mail, shoes, newspapers, backpacks, etc. If you can just get this one habit until control, you would be so surprised at what a difference it would make in your home!

One simple thing you can do is to just get in the habit of taking a few things with you every time you leave a room. It would literally take a matter of seconds to pick up a couple of glasses or dishes when you're heading for the kitchen, a pair of shoes or a coat when you're headed for the bedroom - how easy is that?

Eliminating the clutter in this way will make your room look so much cleaner and will make it so much easier to keep a room looking nice. You've gotten to the point where you don't even notice the clutter.

Once you remove the constant clutter from a room, you'll notice even one thing out of place. It's like the peace and quiet of the country after a few weeks of being in the noise and bustle of the city. It's really refreshing.

The trick is to remember it. They say that it takes 28 days to build a habit. I don't know if that's true or not, but building new habits is definitely a big challenge for me.

However, there are some little tricks you can use to help get yourself into a new habit. Here are some ideas:

- Put a rubber band around your wrist or a brightly colored bracelet.
- Reward yourself. If you do better with the habit than you did the day before, reward yourself with a little extra TV time or a special coffee or some other small, easily repeatable reward.
- Stick up post-it notes everywhere to encourage yourself.
- Engage your kids or your husband. Have them levy .25 cent fines on you when you forget.
- Be creative. Try to think like a teacher who is trying to motivate a room full of kids.

This is my favorite technique for habit building - Try the "don't break the chain" technique. Get a small calendar and some fun stickers. You get a sticker for each consecutive day you remember your habit. When you get a chain of 5 or 6 consecutive days, plan a small treat for yourself. Each time, try to make your chain longer and longer - you are basically competing with yourself and that is a great incentive

Be sure and come back next Monday and Friday for the next installment in my Clutterbugs series. To see the rest of the series, just click the Clutterbugs tag at the bottom of this post and it will bring up a list of them.



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