Without Dash

I learned to hate clutter when I started travelling. Try to put useless stuff in a suitcase and carry it around for several months. Nobody wants to do that. And what I found is that at all major backpack destinations there are lots of second hand shops that ‘buy everything, and sell everything’. This is simply because when traveling you will get tired of carrying useless stuff very soon and will try to unload. In a house it is not different. All the clutter that you accumulate weighs you down; mentally.

Rule 1:
Try to think what you really, really need to live your life. Or another common suggestion is to imagine your house on fire. Your family and pets are all safe. You have time to remove more items from your house. What are you going to save? Which things will you leave in the house? And if the latter are not worth taking, what are they doing in your house? There’s no reason to be surrounded by things that don’t work, that you don’t need, or that you don’t even like.

You don’t need appliances that are broken, or aren’t being used at all. You do not need all those plastic storage items with missing lids and neither do you need any lids with missing containers. You don’t need clothes that are only worn by your hangers in the closet. You don’t need to keep items that were a present or an inheritance if you do not need or like them. Guilt is not a reason to hang on to stuff. The same thing for items that bring back a memory. Hold on to the memory itself, not the item. See an old t-shirt for what it is: an old t-shirt.

A good rule of thumb to decide what to keep and what not is the one-year-rule. If you didn’t use the item in the past year, you are not likely to be ever using it again. Get rid of it! For myself I like to add another rule of thumb. If you can’t remember what is in the box, throw away the whole box without looking. You can’t miss what you don’t remember. Not a very safe rule, I know. You might be throwing away your kid’s baby pictures that you never got round to sticking in an album.

Note: not everything needs to be thrown in the garbage, some things are perfect for a yard sale or for charity. And some things simply need returning to the right owner.

Rule 2:
Everything (that is left after sorting) has its own place. Think about the best place to put things. Like in Kindergarten, “where does it belong?” You will find that many items seem to live on the kitchen table, or do not even have their own place and have to be searched for every time you need them. Take time with every item to designate a good spot.

Keys should always go in the same place, most likely a bowl or hook near the door, to avoid searching every morning before leaving the house. Papers, mail and bills should all go in the same place, to avoid losing them, paying late, etc. All my bills go on a corkboard in my work place, but some people use an inbox tray. Same thing for receipts, warranty cards, manuals. Put them all together in the same place (drawer, envelope, etc).

Teach your SO and your kids where things belong. When everyone puts it back in the right place, no one has to search for it and the house will stay clutter free.

Rule 3:
Have an “awaiting verdict” box. I use this mostly to check if the rest of the family needs an item or not. The problem is that if I ask any of them, they want to keep everything and find it very difficult to part with any possession. So, things that I want to get rid of, I put in the box. Things that are normally in the “awaiting verdict” box are shoes, or toys or what I call junk brought back from the fancy fair or bingo. If no one asked about this item in the next 6 months or year, I can safely throw it away. This way I do not risk throwing something that still has emotional value for someone else, or is needed for some reason.

Tomorrow we will start with clearing flat surfaces like counters or desks. Join the declutter week here at Without Dash, or sign up to receive the next step directly in your mailbox.

Tags: declutter