Last week on the blog, we covered clutter and organization through the lens of self-awareness. Starting to reduce clutter and feel more in control of your life and stuff starts with that awareness.
Once we have some insight, it’s time to shift gears and focus on making change. When we are especially overwhelmed the challenge can become where to start.
This weekend, I came across an article and a podcast that provided some thoughts on that beginning. The first is a blog post by Joshua Becker titled “10 Things NOT to Declutter First”. The post goes into areas that are daunting like photos, paper, the garage, kids toys and more.
The second was a podcast from Sustainable Minimalists titled “High-Impact Decluttering”. The episode covered 6 high-impact spaces and how you could declutter them in less than 20 minutes.
My Perspective
As I considered these two points of view, I came up with four recommendations as you decide the area of your home you want to work on first.
Personal – First consider focusing on your stuff. Your car and your purse are two good places to start. These can be delt with quickly and will give you a feeling of accomplishment. Down the road you can handle your closet. Starting with your own clutter will show others in your home what the process looks like so they will be ready when the time comes to work on their things.
Frequent – Once you’ve tackled a couple of your spaces, move on to areas that you spend a fair amount of time. Two ideas here would be the kitchen and your office. I purposely left the family room off the list as this might be a space with a lot of other people’s stuff to tackle.
Visible – For the room(s) you select first, focus on the visible clutter. Leave closets and cabinets for another day and time. Spend ½ hour getting the space cleaned up and then put a routine in place to tidy up the space on a regular basis – possibly at the end of day or right when you get up.
Present – As you move deeper into decluttering projects, design processes to deal with incoming stuff before dealing with the backlog. This is especially important for things like paper, photographs, and memorabilia. Organizing these items as they come into the house is much better than having the daunting task 10+ years in.
As you start to tackle clutter, keep in mind what you learned last week about how you view clutter and what are the best forms of organization for your personal style.
Your Turn
What areas of your life/home come to mind as you read this post?
Do you tend to dive into big projects (like a basement) and then get frustrated with lack of progress?
Have you had success in getting others in your home onboard with decluttering?