Your Extremely Cluttered House or Apartment Could Be A Sign Of a Problem – Here’s How To Know If It’s a Problem and How To Clean It Up.. even if …
Felling overwhelmed and stressed at the moment? These 14 brilliant tips will help you declutter your mind and achieve mental minimalism.
It happens to everyone at one point or another – we look around our home and think, “Man, I have a LOT of CRAP! What do I DO with it …
Do you want to have a simple, clutter-free home? These 8 tips will help you maintain minimalism in your home and your life!
If you’ve wondered how to live minimally, you’re not alone. People everywhere have had enough of feeling busy, cluttered, and overwhelmed.
In need of some ideas to reduce your consumption on your journey to minimalism? These are 24 things I stopped buying as a minimalist.
Find minimalist habits that work best for you so that YOU can find what really matters most in life. Set goals and values to find minimalism.
Need to Organize Your Entire Life? When you are organized, you get more done and accomplish things quicker than most. Here are 13 tips on how to organize your life today!
Trying to lose weight? Sometimes clearing the clutter in your home (and life!) can help you make that healthy weight goal a reality.
VERY Messy House? Feeling OVERWHELMED By Clutter? Where To START Decluttering, Cleaning and Organizing When Your House is a Disaster. If you’re tired of thinking: “My House Is SO CLUTTERED… …
My definition of a cleaning mistake is one that causes you waste time cleaning. We're busy people, so why spend MORE time cleaning instead of something more fun?
Here are six lies the Ego tells us, and comebacks from the Higher Self that will replace the Ego’s mental clutter with happiness.
Find minimalist habits that work best for you so that YOU can find what really matters most in life. Set goals and values to find minimalism.
If you want to take a minimalist approach to life, here are 5 principles that I live by. These ideas will help clear your clutter and create space for joy.
VERY Messy House? Feeling OVERWHELMED By Clutter? Where To START Decluttering, Cleaning and Organizing When Your House is a Disaster. If you’re tired of thinking: “My House Is SO CLUTTERED… …
Is your digital life a mess? This is the ultimate guide to digital decluttering so you can get organised!
How do you know if you're a hoarder? By definition, hoarding is a compulsive need to aquire and retain items regardless of their value and an inability to discard things due to emotional attachment.
Guest Blogger: Robyn Reynolds Clutter. According to Webster’s dictionary the definition is “to fill or cover with scattered or disordered things that impede movement or reduce effectiveness.” For most people they take this at face value – piles and piles of things all over the place taking up valuable space. And of course, at times […]
Less stress = more joy, better sleep and more love and connection in your life.
Use the micro-decluttering method to quickly clear clutter from your home in an organized way with less stress. These decluttering tips will help you to start to eliminate clutter from your home immediately.
I don't buy a ton of things since simpliying my life. Mindful shopping helps me save money and reduce waste. With a minimalist mindset, I only buy what I need.
When you need to distinguish between the voice of fear and your gut instincts, always turn your attention to your mind.
Most of us know we own too much stuff. We feel the weight and burden of our clutter. We tire of cleaning and managing and organizing. Our toy rooms are messy, our drawers don’t close, and our closets are filled from top to bottom. The evidence of clutter is all around us. Today, data is constantly […]
Do you want to know how to delete pins on Pinterest? Then search no further. Here you will find step by step guide on how to delete pins on Pinterest.
Clutter and trauma are often connected, and can complicate the decluttering process, but these steps will help you begin your journey.
Cool Helpful Websites!!
A customized, step-by-step guide for dealing with your digital photo clutter. It'll be fun. Mostly.
We downsized and decluttered by getting rid of over half our stuff in order to build our small off-grid dream house. Here's what we learned and what YOU can do...
Free printable monthly cleaning schedule eBook. A whole house cleaning schedule to keep you on task and not get overwhelmed! Great resource.
If you're sick of your over cluttered life, consider what so many other people recognize and see why minimalism is appealing.
Are you ready to declutter your entire home? This guide will help you go room by room with a checklist of what to declutter in every room.
From starting to get rid of your unnecessary stuff, to finally becoming clutter free - here are the 12 simple rules of decluttering that will make getting rid
Dive into the peaceful world of minimalism for moms. Find out how less really can be more, even with a house full of kids
by Stephanie Morrill Stephanie writes young adult contemporary novels and is the creator of GoTeenWriters.com. Her novels include The Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt series (Revell) and the Ellie Sweet books (Playlist). You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and check out samples of her work on her author website including the free novella, Throwing Stones. Well, that was some amazing word warring over the weekend you guys! I loved seeing all the support and encouragement you gave to each other. Those of you who are participating in NaNoWriMo may want to save this post for after November 30th, because now is certainly not the time to look through your manuscript for words you can cut. As I read through the entries for last round's contest (the finalists will be announced tomorrow on the blog) I sometimes came across entries that were interesting scenarios with good pacing and smart dialogue, but they seemed a little ... something. After studying the writing for a bit, I realized that the problem was unnecessary words kept the story from shining like it could. What kinds of words clutter up sentences? Cliches Unnecessary descriptions Vague words Passive words Telling words Quantifying words (little, very) To help illustrate what I mean, I wrote a few sentences of a story to critique: John gave the door a quick glance. It was deathly silent in the room, and he almost felt like maybe nothing was really chasing him. Suddenly the door opened, and John started to run for his life. His heart was pounding very fast in his chest as he stumbled clumsily down the yellow hallway. Let's get out our mental red pens and go sentence by sentence. John gave the door a quick glance. I see sentences like this all the time (not just from beginning writers, but in my first drafts too) and it's a needlessly complicated way to say: John glanced at the door. A glance by definition is quick, so we don't need the extra word to describe it, And he doesn't need to give the door anything, he just needs to do the thing. Same as John doesn't need to give the door a swift kick or a hard punch or a fresh new coat of paint. John can simply kick the door, punch the door, and paint the door. Editing challenge: Run a search in your manuscript for the word "gave" (or "give" if that fits your book's tense) and see if you've over-complicated any actions. It was deathly silent in the room, Starting a sentence with "it" usually isn't the right choice. In my final drafts, I always seek out "it" in sentences and ask if I can replace the word with the intended noun. Doing so doesn't always make sense, but I like to check. In this case, "it" refers to the room. So it's better to start with "The room was deathly silent" But I don't like that passive voice, so I would drop our unnecessary adverb and change this to, "Silence filled the room." If you want to describe the silence, I'm sure you can do better than deathly. Maybe unsettling silence? Uncharacteristic silence? Hair-raising silence? Revised sentence: Silence filled the room. Editing challenge: Check your manuscript for "it" and "was." Can you replace it with a specific noun? (You can't always, but it's good to check!) Same with was. Unless it's continuous action (i.e. Jane was stirring the soup when I arrived) then you'll want to cut was and just have the character do the action. and he almost felt like maybe nothing was really chasing him. I see the phrase "almost felt" a ton. Even in my own drafts. I don't know why I do that. What's this almost business? Does the character feel it or no? But usually the word "felt" is a red flag that I'm telling my story instead of showing it. So I can scrap the phrase altogether and show this instead. How could you show this? Sometimes I do it by asking the question: Maybe nothing was really chasing him? Another option is to show what he's listening for: No footsteps echoed behind the door, nor did any chatter. Let's focus now on that "maybe nothing was really chasing him" part. Do we lose anything if we revise this to, "Maybe nothing was chasing him"? We don't, right? I think we could also make a case for changing this to, "Maybe nothing chased him." It gets rid of the passive structure, which I like. But if you're suggesting continuous action, you could leave it. Revised sentence: Maybe nothing was chasing him? Editing challenge: Run a search for "felt" in your story and see if you're using it to tell your story rather than show it. Also run a search for "really" and "actually" which are often needless words. Suddenly the door opened, and John started to run for his life. If you see the word "suddenly" in your manuscript, it can almost always be cut. Writers fall back on it when they're trying to convey sudden action, but you usually don't need it. Instead of trying to have "suddenly" do the work of the sentence, I would focus on the word "opened" when trying to communicate the immediacy. The door could spring or fling open. The phrase "John started to run" implies that John began something he didn't finish. So instead, John can just run. "Run for his life" is a tired phrase that is being used to show that John is running with immediacy. Instead of pulling out a cliche, I say we pick a more interesting verb. John could dash away from the door, He could also spurt, rush, or dart. Revised sentence: The door flung open, and John dashed away. Editing challenge: Search your manuscript for the word suddenly. Is it a word you can cut? Run a search for "started to" or "began to" and see if they can be revised as well. His heart was pounding very fast in his chest as he stumbled clumsily down the yellow hallway. His heart was pounding very fast in his chest: The first thing you can do here is cross out "in his chest." By default, that's where hearts pound. And "was pounding very fast" is a complicated way to state that his heart raced. If you think a racing heart sounds a bit tired, his heart could also hammer or thunder or something more creative. In an action scene, however, you want to be careful about the kind of phrase you pick. If you pick something so fresh that your reader gets distracted and pulled out of the story, that's bad for your pacing. "Stumbled clumsily" can be simplified to stumbled. I would like to see someone stumble in a way that doesn't appear clumsy. Now for the yellow hallway. This isn't outright wrong, but I question that this is the right time to showcase the color of the hallway. Readers certainly like to "see" where action is taking place, but I think it's clunky during a getaway scene to throw in the color of the hall. Here's our new sentences all together: John glanced at the door. Silence filled the room. Maybe nothing was chasing him? The door flung open, and John dashed away. His heart raced as he stumbled down the hallway. While I think these could be improved upon, they've at least lost the cluttered feeling If you would like to, pull a cluttered sentence from your manuscript, clean it up, and share it in the comments section! **Quick note: For those who don't already know, my 4-year-old son, Connor, suffers from epilepsy. We enjoyed 6 months of seizure freedom, but in the last month his seizures have returned. I'll be gone all day and tomorrow for an overnight hospital stay. That means I probably won't be able to respond to as many comments as I normally do. Thank you for understanding!