Spring is not really upon us, but in hopes it will someday stick its head out of whatever hole it’s hiding in, my brain has decided upon spring cleaning as a coping mechanism. As a family of eight who practices wonderful minimalism and never impulse buys or visits grandma, we have a lot of stuff. And I mean A LOT. Like we could furnish a pretty good sized National Treasure catacomb treasure room but instead of invaluable scrolls and gold statues, we would have mounds of glittering McDonald’s toys and huge swimming pools of broken crayons. Sometimes we just fill boxes of random stuff to be sorted later when we’re cleaning in a hurry and then a year later we stumble upon them and wonder why were storing random socks and remotes to stereos we threw out six months ago because they were broken and didn’t have a remote anyway.

I hear there are a lot of good decluttering systems out there for simplifying your life and cleaning up your space. I tried to watch the Marie Kondo Netflix series but just the trailers made me suspect it would involve a lot of guilt and self-loathing so I just watched repeat episodes of The Office instead. I’m all for having joy in your possessions, but holding a box of diapers doesn’t bring me many emotions except potty-training PTSD but I’m keeping them anyway. So I decided to come up with my own criteria to weed through our endless jungle of personal effects. I know you want guidance in this area, from me, especially if you have had the pleasure of taking a tour through our immaculate tunnels of things in our home, so here is how to simplify your house.

KEEP:

• Anything your children might come to you searching for in three months after not touching it for three years. Hell hath no fury like a child who is missing their favorite toy from when they were six months old.
• Stuff you can use to hide other stuff. Baskets, luggage, toy chests, large blankets, paint camouflage. You never know when family might drop by unexpectedly and you’ll need a backup plan.
• All the cords. You think that cord goes to your old walkman but it actually charges your blender and you’re going to regret giving it to Goodwill. Better safe than sorry. Plus keeping them all in one big drawer creates a giant tangled puzzle that will be a good family bonding activity later when you need to detangle them. Multi-purposing all day long over here, because simplify your life!
• All the snacks. Your pantry may look too full but tomorrow after your children get done with it nothing will be left but the bones of a few wildebeest and that one cereal you bought that no one likes. Keep the snacks. Expiration dates are just guidelines anyway.
• Any toys you spent months picking out for Christmas that your child played with Christmas morning and never touched again. You invested a lot of emotional energy trying to make them happy and in return they can donate them after you are dead. It’s fair. Plus they have younger siblings who might play with them someday, right?

GET RID OF:

• All the remotes. This just saves time so it’s a smart move.
• Blankets. Every blanket you can find. And pillows. Blankets and pillows are just fancy names for fort building materials and you’re going to trip over every single one at some point. Save yourself the pain.
• Your dishes. Then go to Costco and buy a million piece bulk set of plastic dishes. Never do dishes ever again. You’re welcome.
• The mop. Mostly because I keep mine by the fridge and it annoys me every time it falls out of it’s nook and hits someone in the head. And I hate mopping. And holding the mop makes me feel the opposite of joy. Maybe there is a bit of Marie Kondo in this system. Thanks Marie.
• Books. If you actually have time to sit down and re-read books your life is probably adequately simplified already anyway. Plus owning books just deprives you of the pleasure of racking up late fees at your local library, and it feels good knowing I’m financially supporting my local neighborhood programs.
• Your kids. Boom. Your house just got like 9000% cleaner. I wonder why all those other organizing gurus missed this, it’s pretty obvious. This is why I like to come up with my own systems that work for me.

So there you go. The recipe for success in making your home a happy, orderly place. If this system works for you, let me know so I can start my own Netflix show. I think I would be very helpful and a pleasure to watch. Plus then I could get a ton of money to hire Marie to come organize my house. (I really do amaze myself with my good ideas.)