8 Everyday Ways to Live Clutter-Free

Communicate About Household Chores

Different things are important to different people for different reasons. There are emotions attached to the work we're doing here. Take the time to understand one another. Make communicating about your home part of how you interact with your family. Get to a place where the cleaning-out process isn't accusatory or adversarial and you will find ways of decluttering that work for everyone.

Resolve conflicts, particularly when kids are involved, by divvying up responsibilities.

1. Have everyone keep track of the household chores they accomplish in a single week and the time they spent on each one. At the end of the week, compare charts.
   
   
2. Using the above exercise, redistribute chores to even out the time each person spends cleaning up and helping out. Create a job chart.
   
   
3. Your job chart can include: Sorting mail, doing laundry, folding laundry, taking out the trash, setting the table, doing the dishes, straightening your bedroom, walking the dog, feeding pets or cleaning up after pets.