The following are some useful tips to reducing clutter in your home, office or anywhere else.
You don't always have to just throw everything away. There are many creative ways you can de-clutter
your home and still
be green.
So here�s my advice: start with just five minutes. Baby steps are important. Sure,
five minutes won�t barely make a dent in your mountain, but it�s a start.
Then take another five minutes tomorrow. And another
the next day. Before you know it, you�ll have cleared a whole closet or a room and
then half your house.
Make some money.
The most satisfying,
green way to get rid of stuff is to make some green.
High-end clothes can go to
consignment.
Collectibles do well on e-bay.
Toys, children�s clothing, and knick
knacks are yard sale best sellers.
For large numbers of antiques, china, silver,
or porcelain, try an auction warehouse.
Have a place in your home.
Designate
the corner of a closet or your laundry room for housing discards to donate. Try
to do this every other month. Keep a hamper or garbage can in your designated spot
and whenever you see an item cluttering your home that you or your family members
1) don't use, 2) don't love, or 3) have outgrown, put it in the hamper. At the end
of each month, bag the items and take them to a donation center, or call to have
them picked up. The Veterans and Big Brother Big Sister will pick up clothing and
small household items at your home.
Have a swap party.
My friends and I have
a seasonal purge party. We all bring items we no longer need or use: clothes, jewelry,
purses, home d�cor, small furniture, magazines, etc. It goes into a pile in the
middle of the room and we all dive in! It is a fun way of getting rid of things,
getting a few new things, and catching up with friends. At the end of it, we bag
all the items we don�t want and donate them to a women�s shelter. This also works
well with a group of moms and the clothing and toys your children have outgrown.
Re-use your own stuff.
Reusing common house hold items for new organizational
ways can really save you money. Try thinking outside the box as to the way you use
common items. For example, empty gift baskets make great mail bins, in-boxes, planters,
magazine bins, small toy organizers and more. Walk around your house and really
look at your stuff. Can any of it be used for a different purpose? A bookshelf hung
on the wall instead of on the floor, a TV cabinet for a night-stand, a shoebox to
divide different kinds of socks in a drawer? Try to think creatively and objectively.
Designate a spot for incoming papers.
Papers often
account for a lot of our clutter. This is because we put them in different spots
� on the counter, on the table, on our desk, in a drawer, on top of our dresser,
in our car. No wonder we can�t find anything! Designate an in-box tray or spot in
your home (or at your office, for that matter) and don�t put down papers anywhere
but that spot. Got mail? Put it in the inbox. Got school papers? Put it in the inbox.
Receipts, warranties, manuals, notices, flyers? In the inbox! This one little change
can really transform your paperwork.
Start clearing a starting zone.
What you want
to do is clear one area. This is your no-clutter zone. It can be a counter, or your
kitchen table, or the three-foot perimeter around your couch. Wherever you start,
make a rule: nothing can be placed there that�s not actually in use. Everything
must be put away. Once you have that clutter-free zone, keep it that way! Now, each
day, slowly expand your no-clutter zone until it envelopes the whole house! Unfortunately,
the neighbors don�t seem to like it when you try to expand the no-clutter zone to
their house, and start hauling away their unused exercise equipment and torn underwear
when they�re not at home. Some people don�t appreciate simplicity, I guess.
Clear off a counter.
You want to get your house so that all flat spaces are clear of clutter.
Maybe they have a toaster on them, maybe a decorative candle, but not a lot of clutter.
So start with one counter. Clear off everything possible, except maybe one or two
essential things. Have a blender you haven�t used since jazzercise was all the rage?
Put it in the cupboard! Clear off all papers and all the other junk you�ve been
tossing on the counter too.
Pick a shelf.
Now that you�ve done a counter, try a
shelf. It doesn�t matter what shelf. Could be a shelf in a closet, or on a bookshelf.
Don�t tackle the whole bookshelf � just one shelf. Clear all non-essential things
and leave it looking neat and clutter-free.
Schedule a decluttering weekend.
Maybe
you don�t feel like doing a huge decluttering session right now. But if you take
the time to schedule it for later this month, you can clear your schedule, and if
you have a family, get them involved too. The more hands pitching in, the better.
Get boxes and trash bags ready, and plan a trip to a charity to drop off donated
items. You might not get the entire house decluttered during the weekend, but you�ll
probably make great progress.
Pick up 5 things, and find places for them.
These
should be things that you actually use, but that you just seem to put anywhere,
because they don�t have good places. If you don�t know exactly where things belong,
you have to designate a good spot. Take a minute to think it through � where would
be a good spot? Then always put those things in those spots when you�re done using
them. Do this for everything in your home, a few things at a time.
Spend a few minutes visualizing the room.
When I�m decluttering, I like to take a moment to take a look
at a room, and think about how I want it to look. What are the most essential pieces
of furniture? What doesn�t belong in the room but has just gravitated there? What
is on the floor (hint: only furniture and rugs belong there) and what is on the
other flat surfaces? Once I�ve visualized how the room will look uncluttered, and
figured out what is essential, I get rid of the rest.
Create a �maybe� box.
Sometimes
when you�re going through a pile of stuff, you know exactly what to keep (the stuff
you love and use) and what to trash or donate. But then there�s the stuff you don�t
use, but think you might want it or need it someday. You can�t bear to get rid of
that stuff! So create a �maybe� box, and put this stuff there. Then store the box
somewhere hidden, out of the way. Put a note on your calendar six months from now
to look in the box. Then pull it out, six months later, and see if it�s anything
you really needed. Usually, you can just dump the whole box, because you never needed
that stuff.
Put a load in your car for charity.
If you�ve decluttered a bunch of
stuff, you might have a �to donate� pile that�s just taking up space in a corner
of your room. Take a few minutes to box it up and put it in your trunk. Then tomorrow,
drop it off.
Create a 30-day list.
The problem with decluttering is that we can
declutter our butts off (don�t actually try that � it�s painful) but it just comes
back because we buy more stuff. So fight that tendency by nipping it in the bud:
don�t buy the stuff in the first place. Take a minute to create a 30-day list, and
every time you want to buy something that�s not absolutely necessary (and no, that
new Macbook Air isn�t absolutely necessary), put it on the list with the date it
was added to the list. Make a rule never to buy anything (except necessities) unless
they�ve been on the list for 30 days. Often you�ll lose the urge to buy the stuff
and you�ll save yourself a lot of money and clutter.
Teach your kids where things belong.
This only applies to the parents among us, of course, but if you teach your
kids where things go, and start teaching them the habit of putting them there, you�ll
go a long way to keeping your house uncluttered. Of course, they won�t learn the
habit overnight, so you�ll have to be very very patient with them and just keep
teaching them until they�ve got it. And better yet, set the example for them and
get into the habit yourself.
Set up some simple folders.
Sometimes our papers pile
up high because we don�t have good places to put them. Create some simple folders
with labels for your major bills and similar paperwork. Put them in one spot. Your
system doesn�t have to be complete, but keep some extra folders and labels in case
you need to quickly create a new file.
Learn to file quickly.
Once you�ve created
your simple filing system, you just need to learn to use it regularly. Take a handful
of papers from your pile, or your inbox, and go through them one at a time, starting
from the top paper and working down. Make quick decisions: trash them, file them
immediately, or make a note of the action required and put them in an �action� file.
Don�t put anything back on the pile, and don�t put them anywhere but in a folder
(and no cheating �to be filed� folders!) or in the trash/recycling bin.
Pull out some clothes you don�t wear.
As you�re getting ready for work, and going through
your closet for something to wear, spend a few minutes pulling out ones you haven�t
worn in a few months. If they�re seasonal clothes, store them in a box. Get rid
of the rest. Do this a little at a time until your closet (and then your drawers)
only contains stuff you actually wear.
Clear out your medicine cabinet.
If you don�t
have one spot for medicines, create one now. Go through everything for the outdated
medicines, the stuff you�ll never use again, the dirty-looking bandages, the creams
that you�ve found you�re allergic to, the ointments that never had an effect on
your energy or your eye wrinkles. Simplify to the essential.
Pull everything out of a drawer.
Just take the drawer out and empty it on a table. Then sort the drawer
into three piles: 1) stuff that really should go in the drawer; 2) stuff that belongs
elsewhere; 3) stuff to get rid of. Clean the drawer out nice, then put the stuff
in the first pile back neatly and orderly. Deal with the other piles immediately!
Learn to love the uncluttered look.
Once you�ve gotten an area decluttered, you
should take the time to enjoy that look. It�s a lovely look. Make that your standard!
Learn to hate clutter! Then catch clutter and kill it wherever it crops up.
Have a conversation with your SO or roommate.
Sometimes the problem isn�t just with us,
it�s with the person or people we live with. An uncluttered home is the result of
a shared philosophy of simplicity of all the people living in the house. If you
take a few minutes to explain that you really want to have an uncluttered house,
and that you could use their help, you can go a long way to getting to that point.
Try to be persuasive and encouraging rather than nagging and negative. Read more
about living with a pack rat.
�We don�t need to increase our goods nearly as much as we need to scale down our
wants. Not wanting something is as good as possessing it.� - Donald Horban
References
Four Tips for Getting Rid of Clutter the Eco-Friendly Way
by organizingboston, on Fri Apr 25, 2008 11:53am PDT
18 Five-Minute Decluttering Tips to Start Conquering Your Mess
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