Declutter or Your Kids Will Tell On You

As if you needed more incentive to lose the clutter, now there is a blog called "Crap At My Parents' House" that displays photos of ridiculous clutter people see in their parents' homes.

Take a look at these:

• The plastic pig wearing glasses and a John Deere hat
• The mean bunny statue
• The vintage box of diapers
• The lanyard collection from every conference attended

We're getting some great laughs from this site… but let's get some motivation from it too, by lending ourselves the objective perspective of the camera lens. If you took a photo of some of your clutter and showed it to people, would it be obvious why you're keeping it? Or would it be obvious that it needs to GO?

And let's discuss the flipside of the stuff residing at one's parents' house– the stuff that YOU left there. On this site there are many photos of people's old sticker collections or soccer trophies, and in many of my clients' homes there were boxes of items that were being stored there for their children. Are you leaving your stuff at your mom's house and she is too polite to ask you to take it away? Or… are you still living there? My good friend Christine Hassler is the author of Twenty Something, Twenty Everything and an expert on Generation Y. (Her Facebook page is here— LIKE her! I do!) She says there are many twenty-somethings that do live at home with their parents nowadays. How's that working for everyone? Just asking…

The main lesson here: Objectivity is valuable! An objective point-of-view is very difficult to have on your own stuff, which is why we always talk about working on organizing projects with a friend or a professional organizer. If you want to work on your projects yourself but need just a little objectivity here and there, our expert organizing team is available seven days a week online to help you get unstuck! We help people every day to get perspective and expert advice on their particular situations, at a much lower price than hiring an organizer in person. Read more about our program here.

And of course, another lesson:  Clear out your clutter before your kids ridicule you, and donate your gently used items to Goodwill® so they can potentially do some good in the world! Find your nearest Goodwill donation center here.

Do you have embarrassing stuff in your house? Do your parents have some great material for this site? Share in the comments! (Photo here from crapatmyparentshouse.com, used with permission- click image for larger view)

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