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I asked for questions over in the patron-only Facebook group, and the answers to about half of them started with, “Well, the 5 minute pickup . . . ” So I put all those questions together and am answering them today. This little habit really is magic, and helps with things like maintaining decluttering progress, determining Clutter Threshold and a lot more.
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Has a person reached their clutter threshold when a 5 minute pickup completely resets their space?
I wasn’t going to listen to this podcast. I thought, “I know how to spend 5 min picking up…and it doesn’t seem to make a difference when I’m picking up the same baby toys every day.” But it started to autoplay, and it was SO helpful! It was an aha moment to realize that if I can’t pick everything up in 5 min, it doesn’t mean I need a 15 min pick up, but that I’m beyond my clutter threshhold.
I love it when you interview people or answer listeners’ questions – it makes everything so much more relevant and applicable to my life.
We’re getting ready to move, and I want to organize the new house in a way that sets us up for success. My kids have very different clutter thresholds and share rooms, so I’m trying to figure out how to guide them to maintain their space in their own way.
This is a comment about how to teach kids to remember chores without reminders.
In my experience, it’s just another thing you have to teach. How do you remember this stuff? Alarms? Calendars? Sticky notes? Show them how you do it. Show them that you sometimes forget stuff too. Show them how you try to start a new habit. Try to find something they actually want to start remembering and experiment with tools to see what works for them.
At various times I’ve used a calendar, a timer, checklists. Right now my 9 year old is using a grown up habit tracker to remind him to do things. If he checks off all his chores, the screen turns gold, which he thinks is awesome, ☺️
Obviously nothing will work all the time, and I’m positive that sometime soon he won’t want to even try, but at least for now I’m teaching him skills that I wish I’d learnt at his age.