Clutter Tip #2 – Reward Yourself!

Sometimes I to play a little organizing game before I got to bed at night, especially if I’m really beat. I’ll count from 10 to 1 and at each count I will pick something up and put it away. 10, put my glasses back in the case and into the drawer. 9, put my earrings back in the jewelry drawer. 8, pick up a blouse from the chair and hang it up, and so on. The reward: I get to snuggle into bed and the bonus reward is that my room is clutter-free!

Anytime you take on an organizing project, large or small, reward yourself at the end. You can go big with a family reward: we organize the garage on Saturday and on Sunday we go to Six Flags / the beach / insert your most fun family day here. Or give yourself a simple reward: Before I go shopping for a pair of shoes for that wedding but first I will organize all my shoes and eliminate several pairs.

Rewards are critical to forming habits. According to Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit, the process, or habit loop, within our brains is a three-step loop. First there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic habit mode, then there is the routine, and finally there is a reward. The reward helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future. Living a life where you are regularly organizing and purging your possessions is a habit to get into. So when you make a plan to organize, be sure a fabulous reward is part of that plan!