Lesson 3: Visualize your ideal home including the four steps of home management

Lesson Objective: Create a vision of your current home in its ideal state

Recommended readings: Unstuffed: Decluttering Your Home, Mind, and Soul by Ruth Soukup

Lesson:

After visualizing our ideal lifestyle, we can use the same skills and strategies to build a vision of your dream dwelling. This dream dwelling is not necessarily the perfect cabin/cottage/mansion with roses all around and a lake out the front door and a swarm of happy servants to assist you. This dream dwelling is the place you live in now in its ideal state.

Getting this vision of what you want your home to be like is extremely helpful as you work toward achieving your ideal lifestyle. We’ll work on creating an overall vision for your home, then talk about some necessary household functions that, while they may not enter immediately into your vision of the ideal living space, are necessary parts of the household’s smooth function. We’ll then go room by room and think about how you want to use and even decorate each space. So grab your BOPO and get ready to do some visualizing and note taking.

The big picture

Ruth Soukup, in her book Unstuffed: Decluttering Your Home, Mind, and Soul, recommends visualizing your ideal home by answering a few questions that relate to the overall feeling in and purpose of your home. I’ve built off of her visualization questionnaire and come up with the following:

• What is the purpose of your home?
• How do you use your home?
• How do you want to use your home (if different than the first question)
• Who do you share your home with?
• How do they use the home? How would they like to use the home?
• How do you want your home to feel?

Stop and review your notes. Then, answer the following:

• Are there any trends or repetitive elements in my answers to these questions? Using these trending ideas, what are the top three things I want my home to be?
• What changes would I need to make in my home to realize this vision? (We’ll be answering this question in more detail later. Just write some general answers for now).

Answer these questions for yourself and write them in your BOPO. I also recommend checking out Soukup’s book and using it to further assist your visualizing process.

The necessities picture

Once you’ve got the larger questions answered, it’s time to consider where and how you want to accomplish the four steps of home material management or HMM4 (pronounced “hum four”). HMM4 essentially describes the “life cycle” of the material objects that make up your home, including the structure you’re living in. The HMM4 cycle involves the following:

• acquiring,
• using,
• maintaining (which is both cleaning and repairing), and
• discarding.

That’s it. The success of nearly every home activity depends on this cycle being carried out well. When one or more of the steps in the HMM4 cycle isn’t being taken or is being taken poorly, the home suffers. Family dinner for example, is a chance to build relationships, discuss family matters, and just have fun eating together. However, family dinner wouldn’t even happen without acquiring the food and tools needed to cook the food, using the food and tools, maintaining the food preparation areas and tools, and discarding trash. Think of another basic activity in your home, and you’ll see that the success of that activity depends on the four step process being carried out in order to support the activity.

Let’s look in more detail at how each part of HMM4 would look in both a well-managed home and a poorly managed home by following the “life-cycle” of a cardigan (since I just bought one recently).  

Acquiring

• Good management: I know that I need a white cardigan to complete my capsule wardrobe. I’ve been thinking about this purchase for a long time, I’ve clearly planned out how this article of clothing will go with many other outfits, and I know where I want to buy it. I’ve reviewed the materials that this cardigan is made out of, and I’m confident this will last a long time. I have also reviewed my budget and know that I can afford this purchase. I’m not in a hurry, so I wait for the sale. I get it at a bargain price.
• Poor management: I’m not sure how much money I’ve got to make this purchase, but this orange cardigan is on sale for only a few dollars, so I buy it. It’s not a planned purchase, but I like how it looks on me in the store. I feel just a bit guilty because I’m not sure if I really need it or not, but I justify acquiring it because it’s on sale.

Using

• Good management: The white cardigan, once it is acquired, is carefully stored on a hanger in a closet that’s got some breathing room in it. The cardigan gets worn at least once a week for several years.
• Poor management: The orange cardigan gets shoved into a drawer that is jammed full of clothing. It rarely resurfaces, and when it does, it’s hard to wear because it’s wrinkled from being in the drawer, and nothing else I have goes with orange, even though I like the color.

Maintaining

• Good management: I do laundry regularly and my cardigan gets into the laundry rotation whenever needed. I have a sewing kit and a place to do repairs if buttons fall off or a small hole appears. I have a “projects basket” that I keep the cardigan and its button in until my scheduled repair day comes. I can repair this cardigan easily because I have all the tools needed, I know where they are, and I have times and places designated to do maintenance work.
• Poor management: The orange cardigan sits in a pile of laundry that doesn’t get washed for over two weeks. After that, it never smells the same again. It lost a button and I don’t know where my repair stuff is. It gets relegated to a pile of stuff I’m going to fix later.

Discarding

• Good management: My white cardigan worked well for many years, but it’s starting to look a little less white and bright, and my best maintenance efforts aren’t improving it. It may be time to let this cardigan go, and while I don’t want it anymore, someone else may because it doesn’t have any holes in it and still works as an article of clothing. I have a permanent location for donations, and, after feeling thankful for the use I’ve gotten out of the cardigan, I put it with the rest of the donations. I now have room to buy a new white cardigan if I want to.
• Poor management: The orange cardigan sits it a pile of stuff I’m going to fix later and makes me feel guilty for months and even years because I haven’t gotten around to fixing it yet. I still have it. I still feel guilty.

Notice that in the good examples, I had designated physical space to carry out each stage of the white cardigan’s life cycle (HMM4): I had a place to think about purchasing and budgeting (acquiring). I had a place to keep and use my item (using). I had a place for both the tools needed to maintain my item, and a place to do the maintenance work (maintaining). And I had a place for the appropriate type of discarding. This item served me.

In the poor management examples, the orange cardigan’s life was short and fairly useless. Instead of being discarded to carry on a second life through donation, it died in a pile of guilt that I had to live with in my house for a long time. Objects managed this way follow more of a “death cycle” than a life cycle. Because of poor management, this object negatively affected the house’s function: it wasted money when I acquired it, was ultimately useless, took up space, and made me feel bad. This item got the better of me.

If you feel like your stuff follows the “death cycle” described in the poor examples, or is constantly getting the better of you, that’s ok. That’s why you’re taking this class: so you can start giving your objects a “life cycle” instead and making your stuff—your environment, your home—serve you by practicing good home management. I could write both examples because I have experienced both. The first step toward good HMM4 is to consider where and how to incorporate the time and space for each of the four home-material management steps. We’ll talk about how to make the time to carry out these steps later: for now, let’s focus on space, or where in your home you can stage each of the four steps.

Acquiring

Acquiring is probably the easiest part of the cycle to do, and some of us are addicted to acquiring. It’s so fun to get some new thing. But acquiring well involves good planning. Having a place to work out finances, plan menus, inventory clothing and other necessities—in other words, having a home office—is crucial to acquiring things that promote effective, joyful home function.

• Where do you do your “home office” work? Where would you like to do this work? What kind of space and materials do you need to do this type of work effectively?

Using

You probably already thought through some of this category while envisioning an ideal day in your home. Building on that vision of ideal home life, answer the following

• What are the major activities you want to be able to do in your home? Where would you most like to do each activity?
• What type of storage spaces do you have? Can the items you want to use be stored close to the area you want to use them in?

Maintaining

Anything you use must be maintained, which includes cleaning, repairs, replacements, and upgrades.

Cleaning is a key part of home maintenance. Unless you hire out your cleaning regularly, and even if you do, you’re going to need space for cleaning supplies. These supplies should also be very easy to find and put away.

• What kind of cleaning do you need to do? What types of supplies might you need? Where can you store cleaning supplies for easy access and use?

Repairing involves fixing broken things and replacing things that need to be upgraded. So, are you a do-it-yourself (DIY) type that wants to do all your repairs and upgrades yourself? If so, you need space to store tools, sewing gear, materials. etc. You also need a space to work on the repairs and upgrades. If you’re already into crafting or have a designated work bench in the garage, those spaces will also work for maintaining things. If not, you may need to get creative and think about where and how your repairs and upgrades can most easily happen.

If you hire out cleaning, repairs, and upgrades rather than doing it yourself, feel free to skip the following question:

• What kinds of repairs do you plan to do yourself? Where can you house the tools, materials, and workspace? Where can you house the items that need to be repaired until you’re ready to work on them (a “repairs” box/basket/can)?

Discarding

Most of us think of the trash can when we think of discarding. That’s a good place to start. We need to have a place for discarding trash. But discarding to the landfill is only one type of discarding. Failing to use and have a place for other types of discarding is one big reason we hang on to so much junk. When we don’t feel good about trashing an item because it’s still useful, we just keep it. But there are many more ways of getting rid of things than just the trash. I recommend establishing permanent locations for a few more types of discarding:

• Gifts and mail: Yes, gifting is a type of discarding. As is mailing. Many people find it helpful to have a “gifts and mail” packaging station where items can be boxed, enveloped, gift wrapped, or whatever, and stored until they can be delivered to the post office or birthday party.
• Donations/sales: It’s a good practice to have a place to put things you don’t need/want that that still have life in them but wouldn’t work as gifts. Whether you donate or sell these items, you’ll feel a lot less guilty parting with them if you know they aren’t going to the landfill and will be taking on a new life by (we hope) blessing a new owner. By having a place to put donate/sell items, you’ll get them out of your way until you’re able to donate or have that summer yard sale.
• Recycle: Pretty self explanatory.
• Returns: This is a place for the toy your cousin’s kid left when she came to visit or the wrench you borrowed from a neighbor. It may also be the place for borrowed library materials.
• Deep storage: Do you have a hard-to-access storage location like an attic or a storage unit? Having a permanent place for things you want to put into “deep” storage will keep those things from clogging up your life until you’re able to get into your storage.

Having permanent and easy-access places for all kinds of “discarding” makes letting go of things much easier is crucial to keeping your home from becoming constipated with stuff.  

• What kinds of discarding do you need do? Where can you create space for different types of discarding?

The room by room picture

Now, let’s take a tour of your house (even if it’s just a mental tour). Write down the name of each room, and answers to the following questions.

• Which of the four steps of home management need to be staged in this room (acquiring, using, maintaining, and discarding)?  You may want to refer to your notes from the previous section to answer this question. (For example, my bedroom: I need to have a trash can for discarding, and a laundry hamper and place to store clothing that needs to be repaired to facilitate maintenance).
• What are the room’s necessary and intended uses? (Bedroom: It’s intended to be a place to rest, relax, dress up and change clothing, be intimate, etc. It needs to be a place to sleep and store clothing.)
• How is this room being used? (It’s a bedroom and a playroom and an office and a craft room . . .)
• How do I want to use this room? (I want the bedroom to be used as intended and also house my favorite books because I love to read in bed. I don’t want it to be an office, a playroom, or a craft room.)
• What changes would facilitate this room’s ideal use? (Find another room for office activities, play activities, and crafts. Get a cozy set of bedding and move a bookshelf into the room. Set up a full-length mirror for dressing.)
• What other changes do I want to make in this room? (It could use carpet cleaning and paint job.)

Tips:

• It can be helpful to understand the original intended purpose of each room. For example, many older homes have a room intended for entertaining guests near the entryway of the house. Newer homes often have a space intended for an office or study near the entryway. These rooms are often designed to accommodate certain activities. This isn’t to say you can’t use any room any way you want, but it’s helpful in thinking about your purpose for each space to consider the architect’s thoughts on the subject.
• If you can, it’s helpful to mentally take everything out of the room and then imagine just the things you really want to be in there. If you’re up for it, go ahead and actually remove and replace some or all items in the room. Whether you actually remove all items or just mentally do so, this approach can really help you get a fresh look at your space.
• Feel free to look around and dream a little. Look at pictures on Pinterest, in magazines, or visit homes of friends that have a decorating style you admire. Even though you may not be able to do everything you like with your rooms right away, having a vision helps guide your creative use of what you have now, and helps you know what to look out for when you want to acquire stuff later.
• A fun way to remember your goals and purposes for each room is to sketch a floor plan of your house and write the goals and purposes in each room. This may or may not work for you, so don’t feel like you have to do it.