After over a thousand hours of organizing for a wide variety of clients, I have discovered a simple approach that can help anyone de-clutter quickly as well as find the most important items that they may be concerned about losing.
I am in the process of writing an ebook about this method, and I am hopeful that this method can help people go from feeling overwhelmed to seeing that clearing their clutter is doable.
If I was going to give one tip to someone who is trying to get their clutter organized, it would be
“Don’t sweat the small stuff!”
The trick is to get all the stuff in the smallest number of categories. Simple categories include:
Keep-small
Keep-medium
Keep-big
Papers/books
Clean clothes
Dirty Clothes
Fragile (put on shelves or some place besides boxes)
Give
Recycle
Sell
Trash
Now here is the most important part of these categories:
High Priority
Urgent
Why are they are important? Because when you are sorting stuff, you want to go through quickly and find the things that are important to you. Almost everyone has something they are looking for. By taking out the important stuff and putting it in separate categories, then you have only two categories to deal with immediately. The rest of the things can be stacked up in one room or garage and dealt with later. Now you have a de-cluttered house. You’ve found the most important items. You have freed up energy so that you can get on with those important things like nurturing yourself and your family, realizing your goals, and making a difference in the world.
I could sum it all up by saying, “keep it simple, sweetie” and be sure to have lots of boxes and containers on hand. You will find that this system can help you to quickly and painlessly get your home in order. If you need someone to help, I hope you will give me a call!
