This week on the IDLE podcast, I’m talking about catalogs. As a child, I remember loving looking at catalogs and dreaming about my future home and all that it would contain.
Today as a busy mom, I find I really only have time to look at very few, select catalogs. However, when I do have the time to look at those catalogs, I really enjoy it!
So, let’s walk through the IDLE process and investigate how to create your mindset for how you deal with catalogs that come into your house.
Step 1: Identify
First, we need to identify what item of clutter we want to change our mindset for. This week, we are talking about catalogs.
Step 2: Decide
Next, we need to actually decide on what we are going to do in our home the next time we see a catalog.
So, let’s really talk about how often you look at the catalogs you have right now in your home.
For, I keep catalogs in 2 locations.
The first is my Mary Kay catalog that I keep in the cabinet above where my phone used to be in the kitchen.
And the second location is where I store a handful of my favorite catalogs. Since I also now am a representative for the company, I keep these in my bedroom office so that I can reference them frequently.
Before I became a 31 consultant, that catalog stayed right by my bedside. It has always been my favorite catalog and one that I read cover to cover multiple times every season.
Do you have a catalog like that?
Okay, so I personally have decided to just keep these select, few catalogs. And, on the podcast, I go into detail about all kinds of catalogs that come into your home and some suggestions about what you keep and don’t keep.
Step 3: Locate or Let Go
As you just saw, I locate the Mary Kay catalog that I order from regularly in the cabinet above where my old phone used to be.
It doesn’t matter where you locate the catalogs that you want to keep, as long as the location makes sense to you. And even though my phone is now with me at all times, this is where I naturally go to look for catalogs I want to order from.
Since this is my go-to location for ordering from catalogs, during the holidays if there are any catalogs I want to order from, they also get put in the same location.
If you’ve decided that you are going to let go of your catalogs, every time you see one, get a few more steps on your Fitbit and walk them right to the recycle bin.
Step 4: Evaluate
The last step in the IDLE process is probably the most important. Regularly, you will need to reevaluate and make sure that your mindset has not changed on your clutter to maintain an organized home.
So, while you have mentally walked through the steps and decided that, yes, you are going to keep a certain number of catalogs in a certain location in your home, check back with yourself in one to two years and see if your needs for paper catalogs have changed at that time.
