Life is meant to be rich and full and fabulous, but if it’s too full, you lose the fabulous. It’s necessary to slow down, pare down, discard, de-clutter, and simplify. A place for everything and everything in its place. Not absurd scrupulosity like arranging your bookcases via the Dewy Decimal System, just enough order that your home, office, car (and wherever else you spend time and have some control over) lead to orderly thinking and a life that works.
I am not orderly by nature, so for me maintaining any sense of environmental calm takes continued effort, some chipping away at the piles of papers (that’s where my clutter tends to erupt) every day. It’s okay for this process never to be “done,” as long as you realize that it will always take a bit of doing.
This helps me:
- Make the bed. Beds are so big that having one tiny is a bit chunk of “neat” right there.
- Use a chrono-file. This can be a file folder numbered 1-31 for each day of the month, or a lovely little piece of furniture with 31 slots that sits on your desk. You can put in it a bill that needs to be paid on the 10th, a wedding invitation you want to respond to by the 15th, some filing you can’t tend you right now but that empty slot — the 23rd — will be fine.
- Have people over. We all clean up for company. If you have company once a week, you’ll never get too cluttered.
- Separate de-cluttering from cleaning. Cleaning is about brooms and mops and scouring powder. That’s another day, another project. De-cluttering is taking one room, closet, cabinet, or drawer and making it pristine. This may involve sweeping that one room or wiping out the drawer with a damp cloth, but if you get involved in cleaning, you won’t de-clutter (and vice versa).
- Continually give things away. If you aren’t using it and someone else can, let it go. If nobody can use it, try to repurpose it (the stained shirt becomes cleaning rags, for instance), recycle all or parts of it (the buttons from the stained shirt become trim for the bag you’re making), or just plum get rid of it. Doing this will make it more difficult to mindless acquire things.
- Devote specified time to this. Maybe it’s 20 minutes a day. Maybe it’s 3 hours every other Saturday. Whatever you choose, put the time in your calendar as if you had an appointment with somebody who mattered.
- Let go of perfectionism. You’re never going to live or work in some space that resembles a spread from Architectural Digest. Real life isn’t like that. But you can have more order around you than you used to have. I think you’ll like it.
If you’re in the New York City area, Elizabeth Quincy, a NAPO-certified organizer who’s taught me a lot, is offering a holiday special: book 3 hours of organizing and receive the first hour absolutely free. Visit www.MatterofHeartOrganizing.com, or write to elizabeth@matterofheartorganizing.com.
Photo credit: David Reber’s Hammer Photography
posted November 5, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Thanks to your books – I’m seriously de-cluttered. It feels so much better.
I like the idea of continually giving things away. Whenever I get something new – I give away the thing it replaced.
Good post.
posted November 6, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Wonderful post! Decluttering, and donating our excess, is such a beautiful way to clear our space (and our minds) while helping others. I like your distinction between decluttering and cleaning, and would like to add one more: decluttering is different from organizing as well. I’ve had several people in my workshops tell me that this one realization – that they didn’t have to declutter and organize all at once – was the eye-opener that prompted them into action. When we declutter first, we have less to organize!
Thank you for your continued wisdom!
Christi Hegstad, Ph.D.
posted November 7, 2009 at 2:32 am
Hello
This is amazing post and I like it.Whatever things that helps you in life are just similar like mine.Thank you very much for giving such a good post to us.Keep up the good work.