Clean Sweep
Does your home need a Clean Sweep?
The term “a clean sweep” originated in 17th century England, when the government encouraged citizens to have their chimneys cleaned on January 1st each year, to prevent fires. The term was later used by navel officers; for them, a clean sweep meant they had swept the enemy from the seas.
For me, the term “a clean sweep” reminds me of what our great grandmothers used to do twice a year: spring and fall cleanings, in which they cleaned the house and everything in it. Even as a child, I loved the fresh feeling in our home after a good sorting and cleaning. (A few years before he died, my dad sent a photo of me at age 2, sweeping dirt out from under a rug. He’d written on the back “I believe this was the start of Melody’s career as a professional organizer.”)
Your Clean Sweep
In your home, a clean sweep refers to you sorting through the items in your home and releasing the clutter, and reorganizing the rest in a way that rejuvenates your life.
What is Clutter?
Let’s define clutter. For me, clutter is anything that is no longer
used
loved
needed
valued
Clutter also includes:
un-repaired items that are not able to serve their purpose
too many items in too small a space
The word clutter comes from the Old English word cloiter, which means to coagulate. Which is exactly what happens to the chi or life-force in rooms that are filled with clutter. Rooms stuffed full of old items that are no longer being used or valued start to feel clogged, stagnant, stuck. And... then our physical body begins to correspond with the body of our home: we begin to feel stuck, blocked, stagnant.
When our homes and workspaces are so full that new life-force can’t flow in, new opportunities and income and joys just pass us by... because our home and life is too full of the old to welcome the new.
I created a How Clutter Affects Your Home and Life Assessment, so you can see the correlations between your home and your life. As you walk through your home, make notes on what you notice. See the cluttered or disorganized areas as opportunities rather than as obstacles. Because they are; it’s in the process of transforming those areas that the inner alchemical magic happens that will transform YOU into your best self.
Where do you start your Clean Sweep?
Your Clean Sweep can start in any area of your home. There are three factors that I recommend you consider, as you decide where to start your Clean Sweep.
When I work with a client privately, usually via Zoom or FaceTime, we do a Professional Organizing Consultation to create a customized Organizing Plan. I am looking and listening for three things to determine what rooms the Clean Sweep process will begin.
Are there any clutter safety hazards?
In which rooms does the clutter have the strongest negative effect on the client?
Is the client feeling overwhelmed, and in need of immediate success?
Safety First
If there is an area of your home that is a safety hazard, please start there first. My dear friend broke her wrist, tripping on the piles on her closet floor. If there’s an area of your home in which items piled on the floor pose a risk, please start there.
How is the clutter affecting you and your life?
If you don’t have any safety hazards, ask yourself “In which areas of the home does the clutter bother me the most?”
It may be that you’ll want to start your Clean Sweep in the master bedroom, and then the closet and bathroom, so that you can quickly create the feeling of sanctuary in the room where you spend so much time sleeping. Or it may be that the clutter in your home office or the kitchen is draining your energy the most.
Make a list of the most cluttered rooms prioritized by how much they adversely affect your mood, energy level and ability to function and feel your best.
You might also want to check the How Clutter Affects Your Home and Life Assessment to see what staging areas of your life are affected by the clutter in the different areas of your home. If you know that one of your cluttered areas is the Relationship area of the Feng Shui bagua, and you are working on creating a new love relationship or a more loving relationship with your partner, you might want to start there. If you have a lot of clutter in the center of your home, and you’ve been experiencing health challenges, you might want to start there.
Some of you don’t have any visible clutter. Your clutter is hidden behind closet doors or in drawers or file cabinets. You’ll want to start with the area that is most draining to you... but please check the Feng Shui bagua on the last page of the How Clutter Affects Your Home and Life Assessment, to see how that hidden clutter is affecting your health, relationships, career, and finances.
Are you overwhelmed?
The third thing I look and listen for in a private Professional Organizing Consultation is how overwhelmed the client is by the clutter. If you feel inundated and exhausted by the clutter in your home, I’m going to recommend you start your Clean Sweep in an area where you can experience immediate success.
Pick a small area, that you can complete within 30 to 60 minutes. Here are some ideas:
your medicine cabinet
your spice cabinet or drawer
your sock drawer
one shelf in the laundry room
Then, after several small projects like this are complete, and you feel a sense of pride and accomplishment, you might want to tackle a larger area that feels “doable” in a weekend.
Making the Time to Clean Sweep
Your Clean Sweep will never happen if you don’t get it scheduled. So, please, get out your calendar and ask yourself what day/s and time/s during the week can you commit to transforming your home and workspace.
And then put “Clean Sweep” on the calendar in those times as a repeating event. It may work best for you to Clean Sweep 3 hours every Tuesday evening, or the first and third Saturdays of every month, until your project is complete.
Tips for Doing Your Clean Sweep
It isn’t possible in this short training, for me to share all of my strategies to make your Clean Sweep easy and fun. But let me share a few:
show up for your Clean Sweep process the same way you would for a client you love
know that your efforts will transform not just your home, but your life
eat before you start and bring a bottle of water to sip as you work
dress in comfortable attractive clothing
mist or smudge the room you’ll be working in before you start
pray or call in Sacred Space as you begin, in a way that works for you
Please don’t buy lots of bins or baskets before you start your Clean Sweep. You won’t know how many you’ll need until AFTER you’ve de-cluttered.
As you work, keep your vision of what you choose to create in your life and your home in mind. If you aren’t sure what to keep and what to donate, recycle or toss, ask yourself:
Do these items (furnishings, clothes, books) support my future self?
Does my future self really need to keep this?
Will this weigh me down or set me free?
Here’s what I know: as you continue to treat your home as if it wants to partner with you, and you release judgement (on yourself and your space), and as you align with your inner vision of your best-possible-future-version-of-your-life, it will be easier and easier for you to release the clutter, and organize your space!