I’ve learned a thing or two (or twenty) about how to de clutter.
Unfortunately, I also seem to be pretty good at re-cluttering.
Anyway, I’ve mentioned this “technique” in many of my posts, webisodes, and talks about decluttering . . . but I’ve never given it its own “How To” post.
I have to keep decluttering as simple as possible.
First of all, it’s not fun for people like me, and therefore any level of complication just adds to my list of (totally logical) excuses.
Pre-blog, decluttering projects usually turned into bigger messes than they were before I started.
Most methods of clutter-sorting involve creating piles or boxes of things to be dealt with later. That’s more like pre-decluttering. If I go to bed before the pile is gone or the box is empty . . . it’s all over.
I’m pretty sure the light in our bedroom acts like that flashy-pen-thing they used to erase people’s memories in Men in Black.
When the light goes out, all memory of the box of clutter . . . is gone.
So how do I sort clutter?
I use:
- A black trash bag.
- A disposable donate/sell box.
- My feet.
Number One is for trash. Things not worth my (or anyone else’s) time.
Number Two is for things that have value but I don’t need. No big decisions at this point about putting them on ebay. (Sometimes I think #2 is a donate box but later decide I want to have a garage sale. Sometimes it’s the other way around.) I just know I’m getting rid of them.
Oh, and the disposable box part? It needs to be disposable because there’s nothing more frustrating than transferring clutter from one container to another so you can donate it.
Number Three? This goes along with my two decluttering questions and is the most important of all.
Instead of creating a pile (or box) of things to be dealt with later, I deal with each individual item as I find it.
Like that tack up there. It would usually get thrown into the trash bag. But I guess I’ve been throwing away too many tacks and the last few times I needed a tack I couldn’t find one.
Pre-blog, I would have put it into a pile of things to be delivered throughout the house once I was “done decluttering.” Now, if I decide I want to keep something, I immediately take it to its home.
Yes, it adds time to decluttering projects.
But . . . if I get stopped mid-declutter . . . it’s okay. And I get stopped mid-declutter . . . a lot.
Even the most well-sorted piles run the risk of being forgotten for days/weeks after a distraction happens.
And morphing into an even bigger mess.
This way, no matter when I get distracted, I’ve made progress. And progress is what it’s all about.
Does this make sense to your brain? Get ALL my decluttering strategies and so much more in my book, How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind. It’s funny. And helpful. And I wrote it.