More Practical Steps To Decluttering That Work For Real Clutterers
Excerpted from the book Stop Clutter From Stealing Your Life by Mike Nelson. Stop Clutter From Stealing Your Life offers both practical and psychological insights into cluttering behavior that differs from traditional organizing books written by professional organizers. The techniques used by professional organizers to help clutterers declutter and get organized often don't work long-term for clutterers.
"Take it easy, but take it." – Woody Guthrie
You have already taken the first step by choosing the method you are going to use. Most people will choose to do it themselves, at least at first. The principles here will apply to all methods, except the professional organizer route. They have their own way of doing things and many not like it if you suggest doing it your way. We are only going to deal with your temple, your house, not your garage or storage areas. First things first. Get your house in order and the rest will follow.
1. Prepare Physically.
The day before you begin, buy an inordinate supply of trash bags (the really big, heavy-duty ones), bankers boxes (cardboard boxes of a uniform size used for filing. Any office supply store has them), several felt tip pens (you will lose some in the decluttering), file folders, hanging files, lots of coffee (but not beans [unless you grind them the night before] as grinding them is a great time-water), soda, tea or whatever you drink (decluttering is thirsty work), some snack food (unless you are an overeater), and pre-cooked lunches and dinners (you don't want to take time out cooking and lose your momentum). Find your CD's or tapes (and your portable player!) and have them in one place, so you won't have to hunt for them. Rock and roll seems to work best for me, though a classical break cones in handy when the stress level gets intolerable. Avoid soothing sounds. You need to get that adrenaline pumping.
Take a picture of every room in your house. Take wide shots and close-ups. Take them to a one-hour developing place while you shop for your decluttering arsenal. When you get home, the very first thing you should do is to file the pictures away where you will be able to find them. If you use a Polaroid, file them immediately. You will need these to give yourself moral support when you have a slip. Take pictures of each room or area as you get it into order. File these pictures alongside the ones of your original mess. Look at them whenever you get into a funk.
Get a good night's sleep. You will need all your emotional and physical energy for the task ahead.
On D-Day (Declutter Day) get up early. An early start seems to help. Visualize yourself as General Patton and declare that you are going to go through your clutter "... like crap through a goose." Wear old clothes, as it is often dirty work. If it helps, wear combat fatigues to enhance the battle metaphor. A flack jacket or helmet is probably overdoing it.
2. Prepare Emotionally and Spiritually.
"But between the plan and the operation, there is always an unknown. That unknown spells victory or defeat. ... Some people call it getting the breaks. I call it God. God has His part in everything. That’s where prayer comes in." – General George S. Patton Jr.
Before you even begin, meditate. If you are using a partner, it would be nice, but not crucial for them to do so, too. It is your emotions that need to be in order. In fact, that is important in recovery. You can control your actions and feelings, but not others'.
If you don't meditate already, don't worry. You do not have to tangle yourself into a lotus position and chant "Ooommm." Sit or lie down. I mediate during my morning bath, preparing myself with a cup of espresso and a cigar. It works for me. Some people use "mood" music, soothing sounds of water or forests or classical music to help them get into the right state of mind. Others find this distracting. Try the last two methods (I am not advocating the cigar/espresso approach) and pick the one that fits you.
Put yourself into a calm, relaxed state by deep breathing, with your eyes closed. When you are sufficiently relaxed, visualize yourself going through your house and decluttering perfectly, joyfully, peacefully. See what your home will look like when you are finished. Feel the perfect peace and joy that will be yours when your house looks like this. See yourself inviting friends over for a party to celebrate your success. Feel the pride you have as you show them room after room of a graceful environment. Enjoy those feelings of pride and contentment for as long as you want. Make them feel real. When you are ready, gradually come back to this plane.
You will find yourself calm and full of energy. You may find that, as you work, you start to get stressed out and anxious again. Feel free to take a meditation break.
3. Tackle something that will give you immediate gratification to begin with.
"Each morning see some task begin,/Each evening sees
it close;/Something attempted, something done,/Has earned a night’s
repose." – Longfellow "(The Village Blacksmith).
Forget beginning with a drawer. It is hidden and you will not be able to look
back on it with pride. Your bed is probably cluttered with books, clothes,
dishes from late night ice-cream binges (well, mine was) and God knows what.
Wouldn't it be nice to actually be able to slide into bed instead of burrowing
into it like a bunker? In fact, that is why many of us make our beds that way
– we surround ourselves with stuff so that we will feel secure in our rest.
Maybe it is your desk. If you work at home, think of how much more efficient you will be when you have a clean space to work! Leave the file drawers for last.
Maybe it is your front room. If you have to give visitors a map to find the pathways from the door to the sofa, imagine your pride when you can just open the door and say, "Come right in. Have a seat on the sofa."
Whatever you choose, start with a manageable part. Some people go best starting with a fifteen or twenty minute period devoted to decluttering. If that seems manageable to you, then by all means do it. Personally, I like to start with a goal of getting a specific area or room done. Whatever works for you is the way to go. If one way doesn't work, try another. If you need to develop your own way, do it. Just do it!
Don't get bogged down with organizing where things will go. I know that the professional organizers are big on this, but clutterers often use this as an excuse to avoid doing any real work. Just dig in. The organizing part will follow.
4. Charge in.
"We can conquer only by attacking." – General George S. Patton Jar.
The minimal organization you need is a place to put stuff, a staging area. Just shovel a bunch of stuff from one corner of the room to make a clear space. Try to put things you are gong to keep into piles of "like things." Don't over-complicate this. All music stuff is "like." All outdoors stuff is "like." Don't take the time now to sub-categorize it into camping, fishing, mountain-climbing, parachuting etc. That can come later.
Papers are the hardest. It is better with them to have a filing cabinet ready and put them into those hanging folders with general tabs, like "important papers" where you will put your mortgage, marriage/divorce papers, birth/death (same general principle as the previous example) certificates, tax stuff etc. Don't get bogged down with making individual files. You can do that later.
You may want to start with your bedroom and make it your sanctuary. The drawback to this is that it may be the toughest challenge and you could bog down or get depressed. It helps to remember that it is where you will probably meditate and give your spiritual body nourishment. The bathroom is usually the easiest and fastest and may jump-start you to tackling bigger projects. The kitchen should come next, as you go there everyday and prepare nourishment for your body. The dining room should be next, as it is where you will bring the fruits of your kitchen labors. The living room is best left for last, as, since you probably don’t do a lot of entertaining in it, it is not as crucial as the others.
That should get you started. At Clutterless meetings we can go into specifics as they apply to you. Mr. Nelson has a step-by-step approach in his book Stop Clutter From Stealing Your Life.
Living Room
Sofa
You probably have one, hidden under piles of books, magazines and a few lost pets. This is really not a daunting task. In this case, you can shelve the books (tips on that later). You know where the newspapers and magazines go. Free the dogs and cats.
Coffee Tables, End Tables
This should be easy by now. Clear them, clean them, polish them. Really, it is easier the more you get into it.
Bookcases
Tossing books is traumatic. I’ve left this to the last, since, next to filing, it is the hardest thing to do. Most people have a reverence for books, which is as it should be (speaking as a writer). Some books cannot be replaced. Some we re-read over and over again (for me, Sherlock Holmes, Mark Twain, B. Traven). Some are reference and we rarely need them, but when we do, we do. So, I am there with you in spirit when you tackle this project. But remember, I did it and, while I did throw out some books I needed again, most of the stuff I did not even miss. Accept that you are going to make mistakes. Just be honest. I had fourteen Spanish dictionaries. There was no justification for that. I had guidebooks that were ten years old. Russia has changed a bit since then. I tossed them. I had some stock market classics. I reasoned that I would never be a trader again. I now miss them. A mistake, but I did keep my book on learning to play the harmonica. Go figure.
You will probably not be able to discard more than a few at a time. Even with too many, you can make them neat. There might even have been some order to them to begin with. If not, take the time to create some. Just dump a bunch of them off a couple of shelves, so you will have a clean space to work with.
Establish broad categories. "Computer," "Self-help & Spiritual," "History," "Crafts," "Special Interest" (in my case this was Mexico, Cigars) etc. Fiction is a minefield. The danger is to sub-categorize these books into "Mysteries" "Serious Fiction" "Tom Clancy" etc. Don’t do that. It doesn’t matter what categories you make, just don’t make too many. You can sub categorize later, and you will find it easier to discard useless books then.
With the categories in mind, don’t attach labels to the shelves. Some categories will grow and others will shrink. Put loose papers with the categories taped to the shelves lightly. You can always move them.
Ideally, if you have grown while doing these other exercises, you will be able to toss twenty-five percent of your books. If you are really good, you will get rid of half of them.
Stack the books vertically with the spine out. You’ll get a lot more space and they will still look neat. The argument against this is they are harder to get out. Come on, you probably don’t get them out enough as it is. I kept mine like this even though I now have extra room. It’s not really that hard to remove the book I want.
We have gotten through your whole house. Doesn’t it feel good! Chances are, we didn’t do this overnight (but we could have, depending on your personal decluttering style). Most likely, it took days, weeks or months. But we did it! Together. As we cleaned each area of your house, we cleaned your inner being. You are not only decluttered in your house, but in your soul as well. Now let’s keep it up.