It’s week 13 and we only have 6 more weeks of this crazy challenge! This week is a fun refresh! We are tackling the playroom (if you have children) and your hobby areas!

Playroom & Hobby Areas

• Remove everything from the space ( shelves, closets, baskets, floors, drawers, etc.)
• Set up your “piles” – “keep”, “donate”, “sell”, “discard”, “remove”, and “store”
• Give the space some TLC – make sure to deep clean everything
• Sort everything into your piles
  • For kids, if they haven’t played with something or if they have outgrown it, it needs to leave your house; the same goes for hobbies you no longer participate in. Give them to someone who could use them.
• Questions to consider when editing:
  • Do you currently use it?
  • Do you participate in this hobby still?
  • Do your kids play with it?
  • Do you have duplicates? This may happen quite often with hobbies such as crafting or toys with multiple children. Sometimes you may need duplicates; other times you may not.
  • Does it still work?
  • What is the worst thing that could happen if you get rid of it?
• Now it’s time to categorize! I feel like this week has endless possibilities for categories!
  • For kids, some categories to consider include: books, games, puzzles, cars, trucks, trains, dolls, doll accessories, arts and crafts supplies, make-believe centers, writing center, & miscellaneous. I’m sure for those of you with kids there are plenty more categories you could easily come up with!
  • A quick tip if you still have an overwhelming amount of kids’ toys in your space or that you are keeping – set aside half of each category to box up and bring out when your child claims they have nothing to play with. This will give them “new” toys to rotate through. Just remember that for each item you bring out, you must box up another item to store for that category.
  • For hobbies, some categories to consider include: gym, woodworking, crafts, sewing, birding, collecting, gardening, photography, archery, cycling, golfing, skating, skiing, brewing (for beer or wine enthusiasts), metal detecting, foraging, cheesemaking, leather tooling, grilling, drawing/illustration, reselling/flipping, theater, camping, geaneology, leaf collecting/pressing, canning, model railways, etc., surfing, windsurfing, horsebackriding, board games, 3-D printing, & collecting insects. Whatever hobbies you and your household are into, make sure to create a category and zone for those items!
• Now it’s time to set up your zones! You might need to evaluate what storage containers you will need to make sure that everything from your kids’ toys to your hobbies stays organized and easily accessible. We don’t want to end up forgetting about items because they are at the bottom of a basket.
• After you’ve set up your zones take everything from the “remove” pile and place back in their proper place.
• Dump your “discard” pile.
• List any items you plan to sell.
• Store any items in your “store” pile. Label it with a date of 1 month from now. If it’s children’s toys for rotation, label it as such (what’s in it; what age group the toys are appropriate for, etc.)
• If there’s anything last week that you tried to sell but either didn’t have time or it didn’t sell, add that to your “donate” pile.
• Take your “donation” pile to the donation of your choosing. Make sure to do this as soon as possible so it’s not lingering in your home.

The Sweep

Continue your pickup and cleaning routine each night before bed. Put away anything from the rooms you’ve refreshed that is out of place. Give the room a spot clean. As always, if you find that some of your systems aren’t working, make some tweaks and continue to reassess as you go! I bet that the first rooms we’ve refreshed are almost, if not already, set up for optimum efficiency. Your nightly sweep of these areas will be the easiest!