You should know that I didn’t get everything done that I wanted to. I tell you this because I have a feeling some of you might be feeling the same way. Perhaps you haven’t even started yet; you’re waiting until today, the start of the weekend, to do what you need to do.

That’s okay! Such is life. Do what you can with this week’s hotspot, and give yourself a pat on the back when you cross it off the list. (My back-patting will look like skiing on Saturday.)

I’ll waste no more time, so here you go—my before and after shots. And at the end, I’ll explain how you can share your own photos.
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It’s here! Welcome to the first week of Project Simplify. Where I am, the weather is nearing into spring, but the flowers haven’t yet bloomed and there’s the very real chance of snowfall on any given day. Unpredictable. And a great time of year to freshen up our homes.

Our goal for the month is not to have a perfect house—because that will never happen. (At least it won’t in my house, with my clan living here.) Our purpose is to take a few intentional steps to declutter, clean, and organize four specific hotspots, which will hopefully give us that boost to continue with the rest of our home into April and May.

I hope it will encourage all the people in your household to take ownership of their living space. And I hope you spend a bit of this time bonding with each other. And I hope you don’t get frustrated.

Well, you probably will get a little frustrated, because there are times in the decluttering process where you wonder why on EARTH you have that thing, and can’t wait to finally send it to its new home at the thrift store.

Or you might need to look yourself square in the eye and dig deep for the reasons it’s so hard for you to let go of stuff. Perhaps it’s holding more meaning than it was ever intended to do so?

Or in this week’s case, you may need to lead your children by example and help them process why they want to keep every drawing and every rock and every Highlights magazine.
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So I was thinking of skipping the spring cleaning series we’ve done around here the past three years. I passively asked you all on Facebook whether you’d still be interested in it, honestly thinking there’d only be a few raised hands.

Well, that goes to show how much I know, because well over 300 of you shouted with a resounding YES! So… let’s spring clean together, shall we?

This year’s is going to be a little different, but all in good ways. The changes are partly for my own sanity, but also because I want this series to springboard us into action for other parts of our life. I don’t want it to drain us—I want it to get us excited for the spring, and to help us see our home for what it is—a gift.

Here’s how it’s going to work.
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The following is a guest post from April Perry of powerofmoms.com.

Just about every mom I know has something on the kitchen counter called “the pile.”

You’ve surely seen one.  It’s generally stocked full of receipts, original art work, birthday party invitations, advertisements, coupons, and the like, and if you’re one of the lucky moms sporting a counter pile, you’ve certainly plowed through it on numerous occasions–looking for that community holiday flier or the reminder card from the dentist office.

Ring a bell?

Today I’m going to show you a trick that virtually eliminates the time-sensitive items from your counter pile.  It’s called a Tickler File, and you can have yours set up in minutes.  Quite honestly, it will change your paper-sorting life.
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