Cut the Clutter Read online

appliances, and setting up a pantry.

  In the clean skill set, we cover the basics of speed cleaning—cleaners, tools, and methods. We find out how to Clothing Section Two takes us into closets, dressers. and clean the way the pros do, fast and well. We stress teamwork, drawers as we organize all aspects of keeping ourselves explore ways to bring children onboard, and share cleaning clothed. We plan wardrobes, declutter, and organize the tips to get the family out the door and on to better things.

  clothes closet, clean out clothing clutter, manage seasonal storage, and learn the best ways to launder and care for Planning your home It’s an old saying: if you fail to plan, our clothing investment.

  you plan to fail. Planning daily routines, housework schedules, and family activities is key to smooth sailing at home.

  Surfaces and systems In Section Three, our surroundings In the plan skill set, we explore the secrets of checklists, start to shine. Here, we learn to care for walls, windows, floors, calendars, schedules and to-do lists. We share timesaving tips and furnishings, maintain bedding and mattresses, and get and point out time-traps to avoid. Finally, we discover the acquainted with household systems that keep us comfortable organized family’s power tool: the Household Notebook.

  and safe. We focus on home safety and energy savings, too, as we make home a clean and comfortable place to be.

  Part Two: Cycles of an Organized Home

  Around the house, the calendar turns—and so do the basic Room to live Section Four offers room-by-room help for cycles of home life. Food and cooking. Clothing care. Dealing clutter, cleaning, and organization issues. Whether it’s the with clutter, cleaning, and organizing. Paper handling and bill family room, children’s areas, bedroom, or bath, we cut the paying. In Part Two, we apply our newfound skill sets to each clutter, get organized, and clean up quickly and well.

  of these major cycles.

  Paper and finances Section Five tackles information handling: Food In this first section, we tackle all aspects of food: menu sorting, organizing, and accessing paper and information. We and meal planning, grocery shopping, and food storage. We learn which documents to keep--and how to keep them. Activity declutter, organize, and clean the kitchen, setting up activity centers streamline bill-paying, filing, and paper handling.

  clean ▲ see pages 48–71

  plan ▲ see pages 72–87

  14

  A WELL-RUN HOME

  The solution:

  do it your way

  Learning basic skills—how to declutter, how to clean—is only the first step on the road to better home management. To reach the goal of a clean and organized home, we must craft our own personal home management habits and routines.

  Any method we select must work with our unique personality, lifestyle, and strengths.

  In home management, as with pantyhose, there is no such Instead of establishing one level of “clean”, we’ll help you thing as “one size fits all.” One person’s list-based routine assess your own family’s needs and constraints, so you can seems scattered and annoying to someone who prefers the reach the right state of “clean enough” for your home.

  tighter structure of a daily planner. Your neighbor swears by the scheduling advice she found online, but the tight blocks Where do I start?

  of time in her day don’t work with your more casual approach.

  It’s easy to pick up a book about home management, read Your sister thinks it’s essential to have all counters and along, laugh at the jokes, and put the book down again.

  surfaces bare of distractions; you can’t work well unless you Translating that experience into a cleaner, more organized can see your tools and supplies.

  home is another matter.

  If you find yourself looking around your disorganized home Get personal

  and thinking: “Where do I start?” the simple answer is: you Knowledge is power—but self-knowledge is empowerment.

  start where you are, then take a single step.

  Moving from disorder and chaos to effective, orderly living Getting organized isn’t a race—it’s a journey. On a

  requires more than simple information or one person’s journey, what matters is the trip, not where you start or how example; it requires personally devised solutions that will work fast you make it, or where other people are along the way.

  for you as an individual—not for your sister or your neighbor Too often, folks frustrated by the condition of their homes or anyone else.

  see getting organized as a hundred-yard dash: an activity with Throughout this book, we’ll help you tailor advice and a beginning and an end and a lot of heated pounding in recommendations to suit your own personality and family between. “I will clean things up,” they vow, “and this time, lifestyle. We’ll identify your “clutter personality”—the habits it’s going to stay that way!” A week later, they have little to and thinking that have caused you to become a clutterer ( see show for all the effort, because they haven’t effected the real pages 30–31)—and offer strategies to help you work in change that will solve the problems of disorder and chaos.

  harmony with it.

  To make that change, take a single step toward better organization, right where you are. Tomorrow, take another step toward better home life. And another. And another. Just

  “There is only one right way

  as chaos and disorder didn’t spring full-blown into your home to get organized: yours.”

  in a single day, so it won’t be conquered in one day, either.

  The important thing is to take the first step, make the first change—and just keep traveling.

  THE SOLUTION

  15

  ▶ Start small. Developing good habits, like clearing up clutter that has accumulated at the end of each day, provides easy-to-see results that will help to keep you motivated.

  Find fellow travelers

  Anyone who’s taken a walk with friends knows that sharing and friendship make even the roughest climb easier. It’s no different in your journey to better home management. Look for like minds to walk with you and lighten the way.

  There are a number of places where you might find

  potential fellow travelers. In your community, be alert for friends or neighbors who might form a support network for your get-organized efforts. Seek out a “declutter buddy”: a friend who brings a detached view to decluttering sessions.

  Without the ties that bind, she’ll help you see your stuff in

  “The important thing is to

  take the first step—and

  just keep traveling.”

  a new light and help you release it; next week, it’s your turn to help her clear out the closet. Check with church groups, clubs, or parents’ associations to find other folks with whom to share your progress; their support will make all the difference and will help to keep you motivated and enthusiastic.

  Dedicated support groups can be a wonderful source of accountability and motivation. In North America, Clutterers Anonymous (CLA) applies the Twelve Step program first modeled by Alcoholics Anonymous to issues of clutter and hoarding.

  Other clutter recovery support groups are offered by counseling centers or volunteer organizations. Community education services or church groups may offer classes and workshops on Resources section ( see pages 248–249) for Internet groups to home management.

  help you cut clutter and save money at home.

  The Web offers a wealth of interactive support groups to Online or in real life, change is easier to come by when help members inspire one another to get organized and run a shared. Look for others to travel the road with you, to encourage sustainable, cost-efficient household. Friendly online communities you when you are flagging and to inspire you with their share success stories, offer accountability, and cheer members on example, as you move toward your goal: better home and as they cut clutter and improve home management. Check the personal organization.

  skills for a

  well-run home
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br />   decluttering your home

  Skills for a well-run home

  “Getting organized” means different

  things to different people, but in most

  disorganized homes, you’ll find clutter.

  Clutter gets between you and the things

  you want to do. Living in a cluttered home,

  nearly every action is handicapped and

  impeded. Either you’re wasting time looking

  for something you need, pushing clutter out of

  the way to create a workspace, or you’re simply

  distracted by the scatter of out-of-place items.

  Problem is, attacking the clutter itself won’t resolve the issue, because the “stuff” is just

  a symptom. What causes clutter is a cluster

  of personality traits, thinking, and behavior.

  To rein in clutter at home, you have to start

  with you: your thoughts, your habits, and

  your day-to-day behavior patterns.

  Reversing the tide of clutter is a slow

  and steady job, but the rewards are great.

  In this section, we’ll focus on basic methods

  to STOP clutter and retrain the family to a

  new, uncluttered outlook.

  20

  SKILLS FOR A WELL-RUN HOME

  Clear clutter:

  the STOP clutter method

  Household clutter is made, not born. Its hidden cause? Deferred decision-making.

  Each item of clutter in your home represents a frozen decision or an incomplete action. Worse, the stale energy of piled clutter attracts more clutter, accreting together into an avalanche of pent-up “must-do, should-do, wanna-do” decisions that are tiring even to contemplate.

  For example, bringing in the mail, you notice a catalog you’d sweet, and powerful, and is designed to help you blast through like to browse, so you set it aside on the counter. Next day, all those frozen decisions quickly—no more sitting on the three more catalogs, a stack of bills, and a page of pizza fence in the face of chaos! By forcing you to make decisions coupons land in the pile, and by the week’s end, the lone rapidly, you cut through the mass of clutter and regain your catalog has mushroomed into an unwieldy stack of magazines, organized home. Using the STOP technique, you’ll attack letters, bills, permission slips, and store receipts that will take clutter in four easy steps: Sort, Toss, Organize, and Put away an hour to sort, file, and finish—and you still haven’t found ( see opposite).

  time to peruse the new catalog. The STOP clutter method fights clutter at the heart by thawing the

  STOP clutter tools

  decision-making process. It’s short,

  The tools you’ll use for each STOP clutter session are simple.

  They’re designed to set limits, encourage decision-making, and make it easy to wrap up each session of cutting clutter.

  ◀ Keep it brief. To prevent flagging

  You will need a kitchen timer, three large boxes, and a spirits, declutter in short sessions of

  between 15 and 20 minutes.

  garbage bag.

  sort ▲

  toss ▲

  DECLUTTERING YOUR HOME

  21

  A timer Stopping clutter, like acquiring it, is a long-term A garbage bag An opaque garbage bag or garbage process of short steps. Too often, the initial excitement of can is star player in a STOP clutter session. Here’s attacking the clutter problem causes people to bite off where you’ll entrust all the true trash, the quicker, the more than they can chew—or decide, store, or put away better. Black garbage bags prevent the declutterer (or in a single session. Result: torn-up drawers, stacks of “I-family members) from having a change of heart. If it dunno” items and a sense that the job is never finished.

  can’t be seen, it won’t be returned to the scene.

  Using a timer to keep STOP clutter sessions short

  and complete keeps the declutter momentum going, and Taking it a step at a time

  prevents burnout. You’ll use your timer to start—and To harness the power of the STOP clutter method,

  stop—each session so that you can finish the put-away assemble your boxes and garbage bag and set the timer step and leave the newly decluttered area clean and

  for 15 minutes. The timer’s bell will tell you when it’s ready for use.

  time to stop deciding and start putting away. Working in 15-minute increments (plus another 5 minutes to

  Three boxes The put away, storage, and sell/donate return put-away items and stow the tools), you stay

  boxes lie at the heart of the STOP clutter method. Labeled fresh and motivated to do the job.

  “Put Away,” “Storage,” and “Sell/Donate,” they’re the decision-making engine that drives the declutter process.

  1 Sort Turning to the day’s chosen clutter cache—the Use sturdy, good-sized boxes, preferably with handles area around the telephone, for example—take the first and lids. Look for records boxes (sold in office supply stores), step and sort the items being decluttered. Quickly move or scour supermarkets for lidded produce boxes. Handles through the pile of clutter that surrounds the phone, make it easy to circle the house at the end of each STOP

  making a quick decision about each item: should I

  clutter session, emptying the Put Away box. Lids help you keep this here, put it away, sell it, or throw it away?

  stack the Storage and Sell/Donate boxes as you gather If the item belongs in the area being decluttered,

  out-of-season items or set aside boxes for donation or a sort it into a pile of like items: pens with pens, paper yard sale. Lids also help to cut the temptation to peep inside clips with paper clips, and notepads with sticky notes.

  and return decluttered items to their old haunting grounds.

  If the item is an intruder that must be put away in

  Out of sight is out of mind!

  another location, such as a pair of socks, consign it organize ▲

  put away ▲

  22

  SKILLS FOR A WELL-RUN HOME

  to the Put Away box. Surplus items that can be donated to tablets. Consider ways to organize the area for best use; can charity or sold are tossed into the Sell/Donate box, the proper you replace messy message slips with a hanging write-on/

  place for the plastic flower pen and the clunky grocery list wipe-off white board?

  holder. Items that more appropriately belong in household storage areas—such as light bulbs left over from December’s 4 Put away When the timer rings, or the area is cleared, holiday decorations—are tucked into the Storage box.

  it’s time to put away any out-of-place items identified during the STOP clutter session. Take the Put Away box and circle the 2 Toss As you sort, toss trash straight into the garbage bag.

  house, returning items to their proper places. Toss the garbage Expired coupons, supermarket receipts, scribbled bits of paper, bag into the garbage can, and return the timer and boxes to a non-working pens all go straight into the garbage bag.

  closet or shelf, where they’ll await the next STOP clutter session.

  As the storage boxes fill, add them to a storage area and begin 3 Organize When the entire area has been sorted and the a new box. Decide when you’ll attack the household’s next trash tossed, it’s time to organize. Take a good look at the clutter magnet and note it on your calender ( see Planning newly decluttered area, and find ways to organize the items Your Home, pages 72–87). Finally, admire your new, organized that belong there. Stand pens on end in an interesting coffee telephone area. Using the STOP clutter method, you’ve created mug. Run an extension cord to power phone chargers or a working center for phone calls and messages.

  STOP clutter step by step: the junk drawer

  All homes have at least one of these: a drawer for small, often-needed items. The contents of this catchall arena seem to expand like bread dough, multiplying at will whenever the drawer is closed. When the mess re
aches the rim of the drawer, it’s time to STOP clutter.

  Sort. Assemble your tools: timer, boxes,

  Toss. Throw any trash, broken, or

  Organize. Once the drawer is empty,

  and garbage bag. Set the timer for 15

  valueless items into the garbage bag.

  organize the survivors in the cleared

  minutes. Open the junk drawer, and begin

  Place items that belong elsewhere in

  space. Use drawer dividers to separate

  the sort step. Sort items that belong in the

  the Put Away box, and tuck any items for

  batteries from postage stamps, pens from

  drawer into like piles, and keep sorting until storage in the Storage box. Surplus items store coupons. Bundle or bag small items to

  the timer’s bell rings or the drawer is cleared. that are still useful go to Sell/Donate.

  make them easy to find.

  Put away. When the timer bell rings,

  stop the session and put away the

  items in the Put Away box. Store the

  timer and boxes for the next STOP clutter

  session. Toss the garbage bag in the trash.

  24

  SKILLS FOR A WELL-RUN HOME

  STOP clutter around the house:

  declutter

  strategies

  Just as clutter builds up gradually, reversing the flow takes sustained effort and there are limits to what you can achieve in a single STOP clutter session. You may make short work of the mess on a shelf, in a drawer, or on a countertop. But where do you start to tackle a whole house full of clutter? Answer: one step at a time.

  Use the following strategies to take your battle against disorder to a global level.

  Where the shoe pinches

  The Penicillin method

  The process of cutting clutter can be psychologically One day, you declutter the small table in the hallway. By the uncomfortable, so bolster motivation by putting your first STOP

  following week, a whole new species of clutter has infected clutter efforts where they’ll bear the most fruit. Look for the the same area. One online declutterer, Ellen, likens it to a dish places where the shoe pinches, and focus clutter-busting efforts of mold, to which a lab researcher daily adds a single drop of where they’ll count the most. If it’s a challenge to get out of penicillin. Next day, only the area around the drop is mold-free the house to work each day, for example, tackle the jumbled but, as the steady drop-drop-drop of the penicillin continues, cosmetics on the bathroom counter, attack the clothes closet the clean areas begin to grow together until the entire dish is and clear clutter away from the key rack.