Part 2- How a Type Q (not naturally neat) Mom (that's me) Teaches Her Children HOW to Clean Their Rooms

Part 2 on my 3 colors of trash bags hack

Last week I shared my not-so-proud moment when I realized my kid’s rooms desperately needed a declutter and mine wasn’t looking too hot either!

Read the original blog post here.

I promised to report back on this new hack's success (or not). Here is what I learned:

1. Novelty is still so important- the new model of 3 types of trash bags to focus them on removing garbage, recycling, and giveaway things helped get them motivated! Yeah! If you want specific recommendations here are the trash bags I used via my Amazon affiliate link, remember I get a little commission when you buy anything through my Amazon links and the prices stay the same!

2. In the future, I need to give them a hard deadline. There were many half-filled bags after the first few days and I struggled to motivate them to finish.

3. Money is a great motivator! Originally I offered them a $1 per bag and a trip to the dollar store, Five Below, or our favorite thrift store once they had money to spend. I chose these stores because they could buy something for $5-$10. A few days in when I realized they were losing steam I decided to make Friday a BONUS day. For that night only (until midnight, teens stay up late!) they could earn $2 for each filled back brought downstairs. This included the recycling and trash going to the proper place in the garage and the giveaway bags going right in my trunk. This new novelty of double the money- for sure worked. Plus in the end, it was less money that I would have spent had my cleaning crew charged me extra again for cluttered bedrooms!

4. EXTRA BONUS! Motivating the kids, motivated me! On Monday morning I was able to put aside an hour to list all of the grown out of ski equipment on local Mom-to-Mom Facebook groups and some other items on a local Mom-FREE giveaway site. It felt so good to purge my junk, provide affordable sports equipment to those who can’t afford new, and giveaway many nice items for FREE!! My shelves were less cluttered and I noticed I could find things in my room! My “home office” is the corner of my bedroom. I work anywhere from 3-5 days a week from home and I hate being surrounded by clutter. So this was a complete win-win for me.

   **Bonus- I made $200 so far selling some used ski equipment. I decided to put the money aside to save up for something special for the fam instead of folding it back into our bank account to pay for boring things like electricity :)

5. Upon reflection, I think the other reason the color-coded trash bags worked for my kids was it organically created a metaphorical step-by-step checklist of sorts for them to declutter their rooms. They knew that decluttering required:

   1. Removing all trash-black garbage bags

   2. Separating the trash into recycling and garbage- recycling goes into the green compostable bags

   3. Removing all items that are no longer needed such as clothing that doesn’t fit (or they refuse to wear) and toys they no longer want and putting them in the white trash bags

** As I shared in the original blog sometimes impulsivity that comes along with many ADHD brains like me can be a positive! I thought of this trash bag idea and I instantly acted upon it without overthinking it and potentially talking myself out of it. I created a list on my Amazon Storefront including all of the decluttering tools ie the bags I ordered from Amazon that arrived the same day and a few other of my favorite Amazon organizational finds.

You may find yourself thinking, “ok this may be helpful for decluttering, but how do I get my kids to do the weekly straightening of their rooms to make them liveable or even company-ready?”

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