You can’t find anything in your barn.
You just had that sweat scraper yesterday. Blankets are a stinky pile in the corner. The smell of your equally odiferous gloves assaults you when opening your tack trunk. Kopertox stained your favorite polo wraps. Your horse gear is a disorganized mess and it’s soooooo overwhelming.
When your home, your barn, your life is full of clutter, tackling a mountain of stuff can be overwhelming.
That’s where Were You Born In A Barn can help. We’ve got easy tips and tricks for getting organized while keeping your budget in mind. After all, horses are expensive enough without buying a barn retrofit!
First, give yourself a break. This disaster didn’t happen overnight. We’ll tackle your mess in bite-sized bits that will leave you feeling proud and, hopefully, calmer.
Let’s start by doing some decluttering. Why should you declutter?
~ Less stuff means less time spent cleaning
~ Less stuff means a less stress
~ Less stuff means more money for you to spend on your ponies, travel and experiences with people you love
Tips to Get You Started
Here are 11 easy tips to get you started. Remember: baby steps.
1. Start in a place that’s driving you crazy. Just one place. One shelf. One corner. One cupboard.
2. Take a “before” photo so you can chronicle your progress.
3. Set your phone timer for 5-10 minutes. That’s all. Baby steps.
4. Do NOT pull everything out and make a big mess.
5. Take 10 things and take them to their homes.
Let’s say you have a counter that’s cluttered with tack cleaning juice you don’t like, a spaghetti pile of recently washed polo wraps, a rusty hole punch, a box of stale donuts, a ripped bag of horse treats, two half-used bottles of fly spray, a hoof pick, a flyer about a sale at your local tack store, and a container of braiding elastics that exploded all over the counter.
Toss the unloved tack cleaning equipment and the donuts. Combine the fly sprays into one container and recycle the empty. Put the hoof pick and fly spray where you groom your horse and the hole punch in its place (and consider buying a new one at the sale). Use a large zip-lock bag to corral the horse treats and put them where you usually give cookies. Snag a snack-size bag for the elastics and stow them with your grooming items. Put the sale flyer on the bulletin board (do you REALLY need another saddle pad?). Sit down and roll the polo wraps. We’ll talk about how to store them later.
6. Put a load in your car for charity. If you’ve decluttered a bunch of stuff, you might have a “To donate” pile. Box it up and put it in your vehicle. Then tomorrow, drop it off. Don’t let it become a box of relocated clutter. Get it outta there.
7. Create a “Maybe” box. Sometimes when you’re going through a pile of stuff, you know exactly what to keep (the stuff you love and use) and what to trash or donate. But then. there’s the stuff you don’t use, but think you might want or need someday. This is a slippery slope, but you can create a “Maybe” box and place those “I can’t bear to part with this” items in there. Squirrel away the box in an out-of-the-way location. If you pull something out of the box, it’s a keeper. Put a note on your calendar for six months from today to ditch the Maybe box. Then, unearth the box and I’ll bet you dollars to (fresh) donuts, you can toss everything in the box.
8. Designate a No-Clutter zone and make a rule that nothing may be placed there “for the time being.” Everything in that area must be put away.
9. Take an “after” photo. Pat yourself on your back. Don’t hurt yourself!
10. Step back, celebrate and luxuriate in the clean simplicity. Make that your standard! Learn to hate clutter! Then catch clutter and eliminate it wherever it crops up.
11. Repeat this 5-10 minute mission tomorrow. And again the next day.
Together we can get your gear under control.
