Lent begins on Wednesday and for the past several years we have made a point to do some “unfun” tasks around the house. Mostly the projects involve doing some bigger decluttering and organizing jobs. Almost everyone has spots in their home that are magnets for clutter.

If you have any number of children then you most certainly have clutter!

As homeschooling families we very often lack the time to get projects done. Our days are spent educating and mentoring our children or in my case this year – going on field trips

Last year our focus was on clearing out the clutter and doing a pretty big purge as we were planning a move. While it should seem that after that we should have nothing left to purge, unfortunately that’s not the case. Clutter and crap seem to breed like bunnies in our house.

I know that some of you will do things like 40 Bags in 40 Days. That’s great. I think others look at that and become completely overwhelmed and do nothing.

Doing something is better than nothing!!

Small changes do make a big difference.  A junk drawer cleaned out, one closet organized, one desk area tidied up. Small actions often go a long way in encouraging us to do more. It feels good to open that junk drawer and not have junk spewing out, so then we are encouraged to tackle another drawer in the kitchen.  At least I know I am!

Here are some of my clutter spots to hit for Lent:

1.  The Kids Clothes – Because our seasons were fairly mild this year and our “winter” only lasted a couple of months, I never really put away summer/winter clothes.  Therefore there are clothes everywhere.  Their items needs to be paired down and organized.  They seem to wear the same few items over and over anyway.

2.  The Homeschool Area – I’m not looking forward to moving this area again when we move to a permanent house.  So. Much. Stuff.  I’m helping to organize a Curriculum Chat next month with my homeschool group and looking forward to getting rid of some of our items.  Hopefully what we don’t use will be a blessing for others.

3.  Laundry Room Closet – Just more “stuff”.

4.  Bedroom Closet – {AKA – The I don’t know where to put this closet} – This has also been the spot for “why did we move this??”  If, after all these months, it’s still in a box?  We don’t need it.

5.  Filing Cabinet – When we moved we were gifted two small filing cabinets to replace our one large cabinet that has seen better days.  This should be a fairly quick project as we went through a majority of the paperwork before we moved.

I’d love to hear how you plan to declutter, organize and freshen up during Lent!