Clutter Control: How to Manage the “Stuff”
June 21, 2010 No CommentsI’ve never been good at cleaning, or more accurately, keeping an area clean. This issue has been a gargantuan source of embarrassment for me over the years. From having to tell someone I can’t find the item I borrowed from them, to literally hiding in the pantry when someone comes over unannounced so they won’t be able to associate my face with the mess. (Note to self: Maybe if you picked somewhere to hide besides the pantry, you wouldn’t have such a hard time losing weight.)
We’ve had our share of what we call “bulldozing” sessions. This is where you get a call from a friend who says they’re in your neighborhood and will be over in ten minutes. Panic sets in! You have three days of dishes piled in the sink. Laundry has been accumulating on the kitchen floor for two weeks. (Incidentally, why is it that builders put laundry rooms right off the kitchen?? Who cares if it’s a “wet” area. That’s gross!!) There’s no place to sit because every flat surface that exists in the house is covered with junk, including the floor. It’s been so long since you’ve seen it that you can’t even remember what color your carpet is. Or was it tile? I don’t remember.
Soooo, you begin bulldozing. Crusty dishes get stuffed in the oven and microwave (and hopefully you remember to take them out before you cook again). Dirty clothes get shoved into the washer, dryer, and pantry. Miscellaneous junk is crammed in every closet and cupboard within close range. You pray your guest doesn’t ask for a tour of your home and cross your fingers that the doors withholding the clutter don’t bust off their hinges until after she leaves. You hope the visit is brief enough as to not require the use of eating utensils. At least you remember having one clean glass in the cupboard, so you can still be a good hostess and offer a glass of water.
After many unexpected visits and bulldozing sessions have commenced, it is not uncommon to find socks in the cupboards and dishes in the laundry. It becomes more and more hopeless to get organized.
If you are brave enough to go through one single bag from the under-the-stairs closet, it can contain quite the array of contents. A dirty, dried up dish cloth, half-eaten teething biscuit, checkbook register from three years ago, computer hard-drive (comes with the territory being married to The Computer Guy), hemorrhoid cream, the book “It’s Hard to Make a Difference When You Can’t Find Your Keys,” your keys, and the list goes on.
So, how do we pull ourselves out of this mess? It’s no easy thing to do (and I continue to work on it), but the obvious answer is GET RID OF ALL THE JUNK! This can be extremely challenging for those of us “I just might be able to use that someday” types. Why? Because nothing qualifies as “junk,” so everything we have is useful! Or at least will be someday! Maybe.
Here are some things that have helped me.
You absolutely have to go through stuff or you’ll never get anywhere. This can be a very overwhelming task if you’ve been accumulating stuff for a long time.
Take it one box at a time. Literally.
1. Pick one, single box to go through.
2. Take it out to your driveway or some other place where there’s some room to spread out.
3. Identify and mark four separate areas to categorize the stuff. Trash, Garage Sale, Keep, and Give Away.
4. Dump out the entire contents of the box on the floor. I find that it’s easiest to weed out the obvious stuff like the trash first, and then you have less to work around.
5. Pick up an item. With each item you pick up, tell yourself that you cannot put the item down until you have decided which pile it will go into. You aren’t allowed to pick up the same item twice, so no putting it off! Make your decision and stick to it. If you absolutely must, you can change your mind and relocate it into a different pile when you’re all done.
Helpful Tip: When deciding which things to keep, there are three questions that have been extremely helpful in guiding me. They are:
• Does it lift my energy when I think about it or look at it?
• Do I absolutely love it?
• Is it genuinely useful and do I use it?
If you answered “yes” to all three questions, then ask yourself, “Is it located in the place where it belongs?” If not, make sure you put it where it belongs right away.
If you answered “no” to any of the three questions, get rid of it! You can throw it away or perhaps donate it to a charity. Just get it out of your house as quickly as possible.
6. Once you have finished putting everything that came out of that box into one of those four piles, you can either a) choose to go through another box, or 2) take care of the four piles you just made.
7. When you are done going through boxes, it’s time to take care of those piles. Make sure you deal with them right away. Do not procrastinate on this. It will only make your job more difficult later.
Put the trash in the trash receptacle. Put stuff for Goodwill in your car and take it there now or the next time you go out. Any items you decided to keep, put them away in the place you designated for them.
Remember: If there’s no place for it, you don’t keep it. Simple.
Make a place for Garage Sale items and keep it organized. Make a date for your garage sale. You don’t want junk to be taking up space in your garage for longer than necessary.
If you keep this up, you will get there, one box at a time. Just don’t give up!
Enjoy your newly acquired extra space and the fact that you have that many less things cluttering your life and your house, which means more time to spend on the things that are truly important to you.
I’m eager to hear your success stories, big or small! Post your comments below. I always love hearing from you!
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