I am a hoarder, an impulsive shopper, and unmotivated to clean.

[Liuka2012]

I have to start to clean everything from out of my old house. I have so much clutter that I have from past stuff. I even have to clean out my stuff that I have stored at my grandmas house.

I was a hoarder. I mean I don't have stuff piled like 6 feet high. Just imagine a regular sized storage unit which I have my stuff stored in now. I am at the point where I ant to get everything out of my old house and just throw it away.

I have so much stuff to get rid off. I am planning on having a garage sale and luckily I have my mom and my sister and two aunt's helping me to move some of my stuff out and get my garage sale planned out right.

Because, I have such a hard time focusing on getting it done. The thing is that when my mom comes and tells me to get dressed because were going over to my old house to get stuff clean out. I just dread it so I come up with excuses to get it done.

I also everytime that I go over there. I get so depressed. I mean just thinking about going to my old house makes me feel depressed. Not that is I am depressed and sad because my ex-husband and I are divorcing, but because the place is just a mess.

It is a mess that my ex-husband and I have created. I mean to say too that it is not like scummy or dirty. I don't have like poop all over nor anything dirty like that.

I also aint a hoarder like you see on those TV shows. I just have a minor mess. I jave way to many clothes. I just cleaned out my daughter's room. And I got rid of 8 white plastic bags full of clothes. I actually took them to once upon a child. A store that buys gently used kids clothes, I made $125.00 from selling everything. Which was a bonus.

So how can I get motivated. I hate cleaning. I just want to hire a cleaning crew to get everything done so that I don't have to do it. But, I need to sort through some of my stuff. I do have to keep some clothes for myself.

I do plan on keeping my 6 year old daughter's nicer outfits for my 2 yaer old. because, i can't afford to buy new clothes all the time. Because, most of the clothes I have for myself and my 6 year old are from like the Gap, Hollister, and Eddie Baur. I don't know why I was so stupid in the past and bought everything brand new.

I do like to dress nice. But, the outfits that I have I am giong to save for my 2 year old daguhter. I also started to feel better about buying gently used clothes from garage sales. I have found some really cute stuff for my 6 year old for school already. I got a lot of cute stuff for her.

I had a budget of $400.00 for buying school stuff for my daughter. That included getting some new shoes and clothes. Because, I have to budget now since I don't get money from my ex-husband anymore.

I couldn't believe what I found at garage sales. I was so excited. I actually found her some brand new pink nike shoes that I got for $10.00. They still had the tags on.

I even found for myself a brand new COACH hand bag I got for $5.00. I was so WOW! AMAZING! It was cool. I'm addicted to garage sales. But, I need to be careful because I am a very impulsive shopper.

[Liuka2012]

My question is how can I get myself motivated to clean, organize, and get my stuff done and taken care of? I absolutely hate to clean. I despize cleaning. I mean I use to hire a made to come and do my kitchen work twice a week.

However, I need to start doing this because I can't live like how I did before. I want a tidy clean house, and my two bedroom apartment is not going to have the space like I did in my house to have all of my previous items.

And I want too only store what I need. I will store the clothes that are nice that my 6 year old will outgrow, and I will give them to my 2 year old daughter. I also collect items from around the world. I will store those too.

The other stuff I need to get rrid of. I will have a garage at my new place. But, I am going to store my passatt in my garage because I drive a SUV during winter when it snows out. I drive my passatt when it nice out and the roads don't get that bad.

So I won't have space to store many thing's like I did at my old house. I also have a lot of arts and crafts type of things. I will be able to put some stuff in my bedroom. But, my girls are going to share a room. I got a loft so that my 6 year old daughter can have some more space.

I do plan on putting my 2 year old in my bedroom for now. I like to sleep on my couch because I usually can't sleep and I end up watching TV and falling asleep.

Also if anyone has advice on how to manage thing's too. I would greatly appreciate it.

[amberwillow]

Have you heard of Flylady. I swear by Flylady.net to help me declutter step by step.

I've been using her site and support for over 5 years now and it's mafe a huge difference in our lives.

[ginniebean]

Liuka,

Your post is illustrative of the problem, no energy, I hate this, I make excuses to avoid it.. and then I"m SO EXCITED when |I aquire more.

When you bring something in, something has to go out.

About cleaning up the mess, can you afford hundreds of dollars for people to go in and clean it up?

If so go get what you need and walk away that's it.. let it go..

If you can't afford a cleaning person to help.. then there's no choice, quit making excuses and bite the bullet. It's really that there aren't other alternatives.

[DvlsAdv0c8]

maybe you can make the cleaning a therapeutic thing...think of it as getting rid of the bad and bringing in the good....like an exorcism. take out all your anger on CLEANING that place! without destroying it, of course!

[hockeyguy]

I listen to music when I clean. The type of music depends on my mood or energy levels. Heavy Metal when I need the most energy.

[ana futura]

If you are going to clean the space yourself, you have to stop thinking about how you have to clean "the whole house". If you start looking at everything in the house, you will get overwhelmed, and not accomplish anything.

Instead, pick one small area, and only clean/ sort that area. One room, or just one corner of one room. This approach will allow you to feel a sense of accomplishment sooner, and prevent you from getting overwhelmed and shutting down. This will allow you to develop the momentum to keep going.

You didn't acquire all your stuff in one day, you won't get rid of it in one day. Set a small, reasonable goal for yourself- one small area a day. If that's too overwhelming, say you just have to clean for one hour a day, or even just 15 minutes a day, and go from there. If you want to keep going, and clean for longer, that's fine, but you have to make a commitment to at least that first 15 minutes.

[crystal8080]

Before I was married I always had an extra room of boxes with 'stuff' and whenever I would go through it, I would think about all the memories. I have a poor memory, so it always felt nice to remember it all.

I would probably still have that room if it weren't for my husband. But he gets rid of stuff before I ever realize its gone. I pay no mind to it now. He is super organized, and I let him. Point being, I get it. But it IS just stuff.

Maybe you should think about taking pictures of the things that mean something to you, then selling them. Then its like you still have it without the clutter.

[Liuka2012]

crytal8080 I love the idea about taking pictures of thing's that I want to keep but know that I should get rid of. We decided to box everything up. I got a storage garage for now. I am doing one room at a time. My mom came with me to help me to organize which helped me a lot.

If I have someone there to help me to clean, I feel better because they can help me to concentrate of thing's.

ginniebean you are correct. I am trying to suck it up and get it done. I do it. Just do it like Nike says, The Mott. LOL

[Crosswired]

hi liuka,
I have major problems with getting the motivation to clean/cook/laundry. Particularly, I just cannot fold laundry. It is mind-numbingly boring to the point where nothing is folded or organized in my drawer and all my clean laundry sits in the basket until I wear it. My apartment is just a cluttered mess all the time. I dated a girl for 6 months and she never once came over to my place because I was too embarassed. It would take me hours to get it respectable enough for a guest. For this reason, I also dont cook cuz i wouldnt be able to do the dishes and cleanup after. This is on meds too!

[crystal8080]

Originally Posted by Crosswired

Particularly, I just cannot fold laundry.

OMG that is the reason I decided to go back to my doctor for help!!! I was sitting there trying and trying and trying to make myself fold the clothes and when I could manage to do it, I could not get to the socks!!!!! ARGGGHH it was sooooo frustrating!

[ana futura]

I also hate folding the laundry! I refuse to pair socks, much like I refuse to wash silverware, I hate doing the small things.

Also, by the time everything's dry and ready to be folded, I am exhausted from following my excessive laundry sorting procedures. Every obsessive behavior I have comes out during laundry. It always takes me at least two days to do it- one to sort, and one to actually go to the laundromat.

I'm always shocked by the amount of time it takes to sort my clothes- I usually wind up with 4 or 5 different categories, all pockets checked, all jackets and pants inside out, all pre-stain removal done, all socks unrolled. I hate letting other people do my laundry too, because I know they won't do it right. Then after I've gone to all this trouble, my clothes wind up in a heap on the floor. Yep.

[meadd823]

I fold stuff that I get out of the dryer but I am bad about the line dry stuff. Once the clothes are on the line they stay there until I need them or the line space. Prior to getting our dryer the clothes lines were sort of like having a half acre closet that leaked when it rained.

I swear the only reason Gary agreed to spring the money for a dryer was because digging though a basket for clean under things could be done in the privacy of our home as opposed to having to retrieve them from clothes line in our yard - We live next to two busy roads in a small town.


Folded laundry in baskets regardless of where they may be located in the house attracts fewer nesting birds and one gets to put the clothes on before having them rain soaked.

I have cats so piles only get so tall before the cats take care of them one way or the other. My house isn't to bad I mean no one had ever injured themselves trying to get from the front door to the bath room.


Gary talks about the garage sale we are going to have "one of these days". I have had one and decided it was way to much work . I donate stuff in reasonable l condition, recycle what I can and pitch the rest.

Life is to short to waste it worrying about stuff that doesn't really care where it "lives". My house isn't a heath hazard, the cat boxes are clean, no noxious odors coming from the frig, stove or trash, as of this writing nothing is actively burning, cats are fed and watered, frig experiments are being tamed by a professional and you can still see what color my furniture is between cat hair removal.

If I dropped dead tomorrow I wouldn't want to waste my last night on earth worrying about dust bunnies and laundry locations. Who says you have to put clean clothes in drawers? I have found laundry baskets do not have those pesky table tops that collect stuff that constantly needs dusting!


OP set aside a hand full of medium sized boxes for sentimental items a small safe or security box for importation documents and if you have not used it or worn it in over three years you aren't going to. I move using the rule of three boxes. One box for donations, another for trash and the other is for packing up the stuff to be moved! I dread complicates stuff so quick and easy is the key to motivation for me

[MX2012]

Originally Posted by crystal8080

OMG that is the reason I decided to go back to my doctor for help!!! I was sitting there trying and trying and trying to make myself fold the clothes and when I could manage to do it, I could not get to the socks!!!!! ARGGGHH it was sooooo frustrating!

Crystal -- I just don't fold 'em. The UW goes in the UW drawer in a pile. My "shirts" cotton go into a basket (semi-folded). Pants are not a problem to fold once just to fit into their basket. I hang my blouses and good pants.

Not sure I call rolling a pair of socks together folding.

I don't have time to fold.

[MX2012]

Liuka -- for someone who says they are not motivated, it sounds like you are getting a lot done. Try patting yourself on the back for all that you do, do.