Do you have little piles of items throughout your home? This is a common problem in our battle against clutter. The best explanation of this phenomenon is according to me the term coined hotspot by Flylady an online declutter / cleaning guru.

empty building with man and burning newspaper

What are hot spots according to Flylady?

Hotspots are little piles of clutter that make a room look very messy whilst often the solution is fairly simple and quick. So what is the solution? You would say removing items off for example the dining table would solve your problem and it might. The problem often is that before you know it, the dining table is messy again and you are back to square one. You see the real reason for the mess is that there are a few issues at play here; homes, a habit, discipline and time to put the items in their correct spot.

Why do we have hotspots?

When I started to get organised I used to beat myself up for not being organised and then I realised a lot of the items on the dining table simply didn't have a home (also known as their allocated spot in the house). So often with hotspots the first thing you need to ask yourself is where does this item go? If you have a place, that is great - you can place your item in its home. If not the best thing to do is decide on a logical spot and place the item there. Once items are put in their allocated spot or area, you will be amazed at how organised your home can look in a matter of minutes. The next step is making it a habit of putting things away on their spot (and skipping for example the dining table). This is hard at first but you can create different habits - which in turn will transform into little routines.

Back to organising habits

All these things, take a little bit of discipline and time on a very regular basis but could prevent hours of decluttering later. So this week try and deal with your hotspots and see your clutter disappear.