Clutter: How to Get Rid of It — The Last Word

My weeks of unpacking boxes in my basement have given me new insight into my own habits and those I would like to have. First of all, remember how I said that I’m really good at throwing things away, purging and so forth? Well, it turns out that I’m not nearly as good as I thought I was. There was so much junk in these boxes, and I threw away so much more stuff than I kept.

That being said, I am sure that if six months from now I look at the stuff that I kept, I will be able to throw away half of it again. This is the reality: we accumulate much, much more stuff than we need, want or use. That’s the truth, deal with it! So I have come up with my personal recipe for keeping clutter at bay. Here it is:

Materials:

• 1 cardboard box
• 1 sharpie
• 2 pieces of paper
• 1 pen
• 1 roll of packing tape.

Image via Wikipedia

If you need more than one box, fine. If you need more than six boxes, seek professional help of the psychotherapeutic kind because you suffer from pathological hoarding syndrome.

Procedure:

• Walk around the house and select items you feel create clutter. These are things you never or very seldom use and that just gather dust and take up valuable space;
• Place the items in the box and write their names on the two pieces of paper, making two identical lists of the contents of the box;
• When the box is full, seal it shut with the tape, number it with the Sharpie and tape one of the lists to the box;
• Place the copy of the list in a place where it will be handy (a bulletin board, a folder in your file cabinet, etc.);
• Place the box in a somewhere out of your immediate way, but where you will see it, be aware of it and be reminded that you want to decide whether to get rid of it or keep it (under a bed, under the stairs, in the broom closet, in the linen closet, etc.);
• Decide how much time you want to wait before making the final decision. This is discretionary because we all have different tolerance and comfort levels, but I suggest six months;
• Monitor how many times during the six months you find yourself going to retrieve an item from the box;
• My guess is that you never once go to the box.

If you never go to the box even once, on the day that your garbage men remove larger items or recycling, put the entire box on the sidewalk. Chances are someone will pick it up, after reading the label with its contents conveniently listed (they will of course have to read this post after a while and put it out on their own sidewalk, but that is their problem).

And if you do visit the box, keep the item or items you retrieved and throw the box with the rest of the stuff away (but be nice and cross off the list the things you retrieved. Chances are, they are exactly what your friendly re-purposer wants).

If you follow this method, in a year’s time your house will be a lot cleaner, healthier looking, light, bright, and cozy. Trust me on this.

An added benefit of this approach to clutter is that you will think twice before buying new things. When you are tempted to buy a trinket for your mantel, a vase, a statuette… you get the idea, well ask yourself this: am i going to be putting this item on a list six months from now and taping it shut inside a box? If the answer is yes, you know what to do.

How do you deal with clutter? Or do you? Let me know, I’d love to hear about it!

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Tagged as: Clutter