Reply to Burnout- can not keep house functioning

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[quote=Anonymous]Lots of good suggestions. 
- You need to do decluttering first 
- You need to tackle it based on categories.

What are your pain points?  Identify those and then figure out how you can address those. 
My own pain-points are - laundry/clothes,   paperwork,     pantry/fridge/freezer.

My tips are -
1) LAUNDRY 
- KonMari your clothes.  Put every piece of clothing you have from all over the house  in a huge pile on the bed or floor.  Then go through what you want to keep/donate/sell.   In the keep pile, sort what needs to be laundered and what needs to go to the dry cleaners. Purple heart does pickups.  
- Seasonal clothes - pack away but only the best of the best.  No need to hoard things that does not serve a purpose. See if you can vacuum pack the bulky stuff.   
- Dirty clothes - take it all to the laundromat or give to the laundry service. It is one day of work but then you are sorted.
- Dry cleaners run
- Keep 1/3  or even 1/2 of your drawers and closets empty.   Keep the extra space as a place holder for  those clothes that you want to re-wear before laundering.

2) PAPERWORK 
- Keep all the paperwork from all over the house in a big box.   Then sit on the floor and work through it. 
- Do several pass and make several piles. Then tackle it in categories. 
a) Obvious toss. 
b) Bills to be paid
c) Cheques to be deposited
d) Medical records
e) Invites etc
f) Action - record keeping/further action.

3) PANTRY/FRIDGE/FREEZER
- Tossing the expired food and spoiled food is first step
- Don't keep aspirational food.  
- Fridge, Pantry and Freezer - Food should be visible and accessible.  Keep food in one row so that you can see it and that you are not hoarding excessive food.  Don't overstuff your space.  
- Make menus and shop accordingly.  It is ok to grocery shop every 3 days.

After you have sorted out these three categories, tackle the rest of the mess. 
 If [b]visual clutter [/b]in every room is making you overwhelmed....do this hacks -
- Take the before picture of one easy to clean but cluttered place.   Quickly,  fix the area.  This may mean to remove things that don't belong there and put it in another area. Have a designated "place holder" area.   Take an "after" picture of the clean space.  Maintain that space. 
- Similarly - keep cleaning each area and putting extra stuff in the holding area. Keep taking before and after pics.  It is an instant calming effect when you see that you have progressed. 
- Last -  tackle the hoarded area. You can work your way in quadrants in the room.  Or you can do 10 tasks at a time.  My go-to trick is to only tackle 10 things in a day in my hoard room.   
- If the hoard room is too cluttered, you may just start with throwing the obvious trash, or just tackling one type of hoard.  For example, you may have a pile of clothes, paperwork, kitchen item, luggage etc or stuff that belong in other places - garage, pantry, craft, closet, returns etc. - - Sometimes your hoard room has a collection of laundry baskets or boxes with previous stashed junk in it.  It is ok to go through one box at a time.   
- You may need to do multiple passes in your hoard room to tackle it.  But, it means that the rest of your rooms remain clean and organized.  For many of us ADHD type people, it makes life less overwhelming.   You cannot have clutter and mayhem everywhere.  It is better to contain it in one place, and then tackle things systematically in categories.

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