• Don’t be like me and have a toy box of some sort in every.single.room. MAN I am a nice Mom! I used to think, “here’s a cute toy box for the LIVING room and FAMILY room, and OH NO what if they get bored in OUR room?! Gasp. We need another toy box!” bahaha. But seriously. Then I wondered why the heck there were toys EVERYWHERE. No more! It’s not necessary. Now, I’m trying to keep only a few toy boxes around and it actually has helped so much!! It turns out that less toys = less messes! Brilliant! 🙂

• Okay so IF you have toy boxes/bins in various rooms of your house (i.e. not a designated play room), use the “rule of fives.” I’m not sure if that’s a thing or if I made it up. What I mean is that IN your toy boxes/bins, try to keep five or less things. Typically this means to select five larger-ish toys, ideally with no “pieces” (I.e. puzzles, card games, etc.) – those are the ones that have been driving me nuts because they end up all over the house! Ugh. It’s tempting to fill the bins up to the brim, but we all know toys will appear out of no where, so they’ll fill up again in no time. But if we strive to keep them less-full, it will leave room for us to quickly stash things in a pinch. This goes for book-bins too (if you have small ones, anyway).

When deciding what toys or clothes to purge, ask yourself these questions:

Toys:

• When is the last time your kids have played with this?
• Will the kids miss this if it’s gone?
• Does the toy work? (i.e. broken or need batteries?)
• Do the kids like playing with it?

Clothing:

• When is the last time you’ve worn this?
• Do you know when the next time you’ll wear this is?
• Is it in style NOW?
• Do you love it? Not like it, but LOVE it?

If you answered no or “I don’t know” to any of these questions – GET IT OUTA HERE! But let me just say…I’m really good at telling you guys what to do, but I still struggle with actually doing this. I told you I’m a little bit of a hoarder. I get emotionally attached to things and fear that I’ll miss something the second I purge it (it’s happened!), but I truly believe you FEEL so much better once you clean up and clear out. Don’t you agree?

As for getting rid of a bunch of toys, especially in our main living rooms, I truly have noticed that it’s helped our kids be more engaging with US and I love that! Rather than dig through a box to find something to fill their time, they’re asking to play a game WITH us, or they’re going to the given areas that we prefer they play (a.k.a. make a mess). 😉 It’s been great and definitely contributes to a happier home.

So, who’s with me?! 🙂 What are your tricks to stay junk-free or keep your house from becoming too cluttered? I could use all the advice because I’m pretty sure the room that I just organized is now cluttered again. #momlife

Happy purging!

XO! 🙂

~ Kara