Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Kids Toy Clutter | ClutterBug Podcast # 1

Episode Date: March 31, 2016

Welcome to the first ClutterBug Podcast Episode! In this episode, I will share some tips to help get your children's toys and clutter under control! Visit my website at: WWW.CLUTTERBUG.ME for more organizing tips, tricks and inspiration! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So hey guys, welcome to the very first Clutterbug organizing podcast. I've never done a podcast before, so I'm definitely going to give it a try today. If you have any questions or different topics you'd like me to cover in the future, please make sure you send me an email. You can reach me at Cass at Clutterbug.m.m. So Cass at Clutterbug.combeg.com. I look forward to that in the future. So we're just going to go ahead and get started. Today I wanted to talk about kids and clutter. So I have three little ones. As some of you may know, I have Izzy who's nine, Abby, she's seven, and Milo is three.

And I used to run a home daycare. At one time I had nine children total in my home. So I am definitely not, you know, I am definitely aware of how much clutter and how much of a mess little kids can make. But I wanted to give you a few tips to really get on. top of it and and get it under control. I know that toy clutter and not just that but you know little ones can leave their clothes laying all over the place, their dishes, they can eat a cookie and have crumbs everywhere. Kids just come with mess. That's unfortunately just how it goes. But there is a way

of helping your kids sort of stay on top of their own mess without you having to nag all the time and without you having to really be the one doing all the cleaning. And I'm going to give you some of those tips. And I want to tell you that my home is not perfect. I want to get that across. I don't want anyone to be listening to this feeling bad about their own home because there are lots of times where things get out of control. But because now I have the systems in place,

really easy systems that my kids can follow, it's easy to get back on top. It's so easy. It literally only takes, you know, a few minutes to get back on top. and I want that for you as well. So I'm going to start by something that you're going to probably see maybe as a little mean, maybe a little too tough, but that is less. Less, less, less is more.

I had a ton of kids' toys. I had a daycare. So I had a lot of toys. I thought that they needed it to be entertained. And I thought, God, they're going to be, you know, bored with less toys. I have to keep, they still play with them. I don't want to get rid of them. But what I've found, honestly, is by regular.

reducing the amount of stuff that they have access to, they're less bored. They are using their imagination more and they're not overwhelmed. It's easier to clean up, but it's also easier to play with less toys. So I really am a huge fan of toy rotation and what this is is you literally pack up 75% or more of your kids things into bins and put them away and then leave out just a few things and then swap those toys out on a regular basis. I have bins that are all the same size and this way when I bring out another bin I just put the bin that's out back away in the closet. And this toy rotation has been a lifesaver. It takes, you know, minutes to clean up the toys as opposed to hours and it's not overwhelming for them because, you know, they've only got a few things that they can take out.

Of course, you know, they want to play Lego and Legos put away. They'll just ask and I'll bring out the Lego bin, but this way they're not going to dump out the Lego bin and the doctor bin and the car bin and make a giant pile with all the toys mixed up together. Part of the problem with this type of toy method of having access to lots of things is that they all get mixed up together. And when they get mixed up together and you tell your kids to clean up, what they see is they have to clear the floor. They have to make the floor, the bed or the room look clean. And this is where you get into them shoving. They'll shove under the bed, they'll shove, you know, under the couch,

they'll shove everything into a toy box, all jumbled and mixed together. They'll hide it. That's really what they're doing. They're associating clean with just not having the things visible. And then the next time they go to play, they want to play, you know, Lego or Barbies. Everything's all mixed up and jumbled together. They have to pull everything out to find what it is they need. And so they've created this huge mess in no time when really they're just looking for a few little things.

So that's the number two thing I want to talk about. The first thing is doing some toy rotation and really minimizing how much they have access to. And the second thing is having sorted, labeled bins. What I mean by this is having one bin just for Lego, one bin just for Play-Doh, one bin just for Barbies. One bin just for cars or action figures, labeling these bins with what they are on the outside, and then making sure your kids realize when they clean up that only the things that belong in that bin go back into that bin. That way, the next time they want to go play with something, they don't have to dump out and dig through toy boxes and dig around and make a huge mess,

looking for the things that they want. It's fun or two. To play, they're going to have more fun. to play with something when all the pieces are together. And when everything they need and are looking for is all in one spot, whether it's, you know, Lego or it's a doctor bin or whatever it is that they're doing play, when it's sorted into labeled bins, it's easier and more fun for them. And of course, way easier for them to pick up.

So those would be the top two tips that I would have of getting, you know, back on top of toy clutter. The third thing is you as a parent, kind of have to train them just like you you know train a puppy you kind of have to train your kids to pick after themselves so you've given them the tools you've really made it so it's not overwhelming you've given them the label bins now you have to show them how to be organized and what that means is when my kids are done playing with something we sort of have a one bin rule when they're done playing with say the barbies i'll say to them okay you have to clean up the barbies before you can play

Lego. Now, I'm not being so strict that they can't, you know, build a castle and bring some Barbies out to play with, but what I'm talking about is the dumping. You can only dump out one bin at a time. And this doesn't squash creativity in any way. Instead, what it does is just allow them to have fun without it being a huge mess for them to pick up when they're done. So the one bin rule or reminding them, Another thing that you can do to really help them stay on top of things is before my room is starting. Can you guys hear it? Before you do meals. So before meal time, they have to do a quick clean-out.

Sometimes when you wait till the end of the day to clean up, by that time, the mess has already become overwhelming. And they've played with so many different things that it's just, it's going to be too hard for little ones to possibly pick it up responsibly. So by saying, okay, it's almost lunch time before lunch. You have to clean up your toys before we can eat. and you do it again at maybe snack and you do it again at maybe dinner, you're going to find that it takes them only a few minutes as opposed to quite longer than that because there's just not that much to pick up. And if they're still playing with it, absolutely you can leave that out, but don't fall into the trap of I'm still playing with this

and then they go back after lunch and take out a different toy. That happens quite often and what that leads to is a big disaster. So now I wanted to talk a little bit about the benefits. and, you know, just the benefits of the entire family of getting your house under control and living with less. When I first started this whole journey, I was a disaster and I still liked my home to look really neat and tidy, but I was a hider. So my closets, my just drawers, everything was jam-packed with stuff. And so what I had to do when I needed something was pull everything out looking for it. I was constantly feeling that anxiety and that stress.

And I don't think I even realized that it was my environment causing that type of anxiety and stress. But now that I've identified it, I see still today when things are starting to get sort of out of control, I start feeling, you know, more anxious and more maybe quick to get angry. And I notice also my kids are the same way. So when things are chaotic in their environment, they just feel a little bit more chaotic. And I don't think they can even, you know, it's not a conscious thing. It's definitely a subconscious thing. But they're just calmer.

When things are neat and tidy, they're happier and they're calmer. So it's worth it to take the extra effort to put the systems in place, to start being more, you know, rigid in my daily cleaning habits and making them, you know, pick up after themselves. It takes more work, for sure, in the beginning before it becomes a habit. But the benefits far, far, far outweigh the amount of effort that's going into it. And I think that doesn't just apply to the kids. It applies to me as well. I've had to purge. I'm still constantly purging and getting rid of things and I think, how do I have so much stuff? I've gotten rid of so much stuff. I've gotten rid of so much stuff. but every time I get rid of more things and make more space,

I realize how much I didn't need those things. And just having extra things to take care of and store and clean were just weighing me down. And I think it's the same for your little ones. You know, keeping the little people even though they're, you know, five or older now and aren't playing with them. You're just, that's a burden on them. And yes, they'll probably still play with them from time to time. But, you know, keeping extra toys that they're not loving and aren't bringing joy if you want me to talk about, you know, the Marie condo method. It's just you're not, you're not doing them any favors.

You're not giving them, you know, any extra love by surrounding them with more stuff. and so I really want to encourage you to really start purging, to really start donating your kids' toys. You can start there if you're finding that it's overwhelming and it's hard when you, because we can get really sentimental about our kids' things, but if you are having a difficult time, then just pack it up and try toy rotation. You're going to see your kids aren't going to miss that stuff. You'll be surprised. And even if they give you a little bit of resistance in the beginning you can tell them you know we're just putting it aside and we can take it out whenever you want to play with it but we'll have to put something that's out back away and we'll do a

little rotation they'll get it and um they'll be happier you'll see so hopefully you guys are feeling a little inspired to to tackle some toy clutter today i'm going to do another podcast tomorrow and i'll talk about um just other kids areas of clutter so kids clothing and art supplies and homework and books and artwork and all of that stuff that comes with kids. I'll talk about some different methods that we can use to keep that stuff under control tomorrow. So looking forward to it, thank you guys so much for listening. And like I said, if you have anything specifically you want me to cover, please, please, send me an email at cass at clutterbug.

And you can check out my website for lots of free printables at www.com. www.clutterbug.me. Thanks so much and we'll see you tomorrow.