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28

Let’s All De-Clutter NOW! (And a L’il Book Review) - Simplicity Challenge

If you have trouble staying organized, you’re not alone.

Although most people don’t live in disastrous homes, many will make an attempt at organization but fall short of their ultimate goal; they won’t ever finish, perpetually getting it “almost done.” Others don’t even know where to start and let the piles add up.

I don’t have any problems organizing. I don’t know why! I was born with the neat-freak gene, I guess. But on an impulse in the Year of Mindless Spending, I bought the book 10-Minute Organizing: 400 Fabulous Tips to Organize Every Room of Your House. I had to check it out.

The book is broken down into sections of the house and then areas of life:

All Around the House
- Kitchen
- Bathroom
- Living Room and Play Room
- Your Bedroom
- Kid Bedroom(s)
- Home Office
- Laundry Room
- Storage
- Garage
Entertaining
- Holidays
- Houseguests
- Parties (Yours)
- Parties (Kids)
On The Move
- Vacations
- Moving

That’s a lot of places! And she really is detailed in how to organize the places. Her book is broken up into long lists of bullet points with their own paragraph of explaination, so that you don’t get bogged down with all the suggestions lumped together.

On the whole, the book is really handy for anyone who just can’t seem to keep anything in order. She has some really obvious suggestions, such as “organize your plates by size” and “store all pots inside of one another.” Well… duh. At least, for me, that’s a total no-brainer. But she also suggests, “use an accordion file to store children’s artwork,” which seems brilliant to me because I would have just thrown it all into a box.

For me, this book was not entirely revolutionary because I already do most of what she suggests. However, the entire second half of the book I have found very useful. It’s less about organizing your home and instead all about planning for events, making a home for a guest, and moving. I have looked through this last half more than a few times in the last couple of years.

Simplicity?

What is very interesting is that many of the ideas she lists include the words “throw away” or similar. Ahaa! Does this possibly mean she embraces simplicity? This makes me wonder: Is clutter really such a big problem for people? Do most people not know how to deal with their clutter? Does this mean that most Americans live in a chaos of cluttered homes? And, how many times can you say clutter before it starts sounding strange?

I think the answers are yes, yes, yes, and five. So just how big a problem is clutter? And what can you do about it? Why should you care?

Clutter Makes You Unhappy

I’ve read what seems like a whole lot about clutter recently. Lynnae at BeingFrugal.net wrote, “my clutter is making me fat!” (Book review and insights on a book by Peter Walsh.) This is a great article about clutter and it’s relationship to being overweight, being unhappy, and being in debt. They’re all interrelated and I absolutely loved this post of hers.

I read another post by Lynnae where she said,

Clutter costs you in stress. A cluttered home is a stressful home.

Oh, goodness, how I am inclined to agree! Yes, yes! In How To Be Happy In The Long Run (another post I embrace dearly), Jacob says, about the home:

Avoid stuff and clutter. Make your possessions low-maintenance and low-volume.

Why?

You are not what you own despite what the commercials try to tell you. [...] Resist the brainwash. [...] Most people buy houses which are way bigger than they need them to be. The reason is mainly to have a place to keep all the unused or rarely used stuff they accumulate. Resist the temptation. [...] Your remaining essentials should be able to fit into a couple of suitcases. [...]

Do not buy a replacement until you have gotten rid of the previous item. Now, for every item you buy, buy it as if you’re not going to replace it again for another 10-20 years. Do not buy into fads. A high quality jacket can last you 20-40 years. Major appliances 10-15 years. Utensils a lifetime.

Jacob is a huge advocate of simple living. He sets an example by how he lives his life, and I am doing my damnest to get there myself. Lynnae also said,

I have this dream of cutting back the stuff I own to only the necessities. So far I’ve not gotten very close to my goal, but I’m planning on being there by the end of the year.

I am planning to get there, too.

I Want to De-Clutter!

Below is a list of every single time Sara mentions “throw away,” “discard,” “toss,” “give away,” “trash,” or “get rid” in her book. We’ll start here. After you (and I) have done this, we can move on to the next post I’ll write, which will be all about organizing your space into an efficient, clean, and functional place to live!
I’ve kept them in order. My comments are in italics. This list is something we should all be able to get through in less than a week if we do it in bite-size chunks. Keep in mind that most of these suggestions are pretty obvious, but have you done them lately? If not, here’s a list to jump-start your stuff-purge:

Clean out dishtowels and discard old ones.Keep the super-absorbent ones with your cleaning rags.
Throw away old food from the fridge.
Throw away freezer-burned food.
Sort through your coupon holder and discard those that have expired.
Throw away all dried-out toiletries.
Throw away all expired medications.
Discard old makeup that hasn’t been used in months.
Organize all cleaning supplies [...] and give away the ones you don’t ever use.
Sort through old magazines and discard the ones you’re through with. If you’re going to use them for some scrapbooking project, or are keeping one just for an article, DEAL WITH IT! Put the “project” magazines in your art room and/or tear out the important article and store it with others in a binder.
Remove all ill-fitting clothes from your closet. Sort through them and give them a purpose or give them away.
Give away all the clothes you no longer wear. Or sell them!
Organize hair accessories and toss broken or old, unusable ones.
Clean out old shoes from the closet.
Clean out old documents and file by year. Get Rich Slowly has a great article on which files to keep and which to shread.
Delete documents you no longer need in your computer. I am in the process of doing this!
Remove all unnecessary supplies from your desk.
Clean out your electronic in/out boxes. Inbox Zero, anyone?!
Edit phone numbers stored in your cell phone. Put the numbers that you know you want to keep but don’t call often into your address book…
Clean out addresses you don’t need from your address book. This includes electronic address books!

And a few of my own:

Clean out art supplies. Throw away old paints, glues, and other adhesives.
Go through pens and markers and toss those that don’t work.
Tend to your plants! Clean out dead leaves and dead plants. Dead and dying plants are horrible energy to have in your home!
Go through your books and sell them or give them away.
Sort through all your DVDs, VHS Tapes, CDs, Cassette Tapes (and any other audio/video formats you may have) and sell or give away all the ones you don’t use or have never used.
Upload all your CDs to your computer. Store the music in a backup drive and sell all your CDs if you don’t use the stereo anymore.
Get rid of broken, chipped, or unusable cups, plates, flatware and pots and pans.
Trash old nail polishes that you don’t use.
Go through the garage, pantry, cabinets and storage boxes and get rid of everything you haven’t used in two years or more. Bonus points for getting rid of or selling things you forgot you even had!
Get rid of toys the kids don’t use and/or have outgrown.
Organize the cables for your electronics and get rid of ones you don’t use or need. There are some great suggestions over here.

Whew! That should keep us all busy for a week or two! I am going to attempt to do every one of these within the next two weeks as part of my Simplicity Challenge that will end on March 17th. Next week I will post about the next step: organizing the stuff we want to keep.

Want to de-clutter your schedule? Real Simple has a good article on that. What have you done to de-clutter lately? Do you have any suggestions for the “purge” list?

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Filed Under Organization, simple living

Comments

3 Responses to “Let’s All De-Clutter NOW! (And a L’il Book Review) - Simplicity Challenge”

Jacob @ Early Retirement Extreme on February 28th, 2008 1:25 pm

This is a great post! I’ll bookmark it, oh, wait!
Lynnae @ Being Frugal.net on February 28th, 2008 4:06 pm

Oh man, I am so looking forward to this series! I bookmarked this post, so I can work my way through it.

I wasn’t born with the organization gene. My house isn’t terribly cluttered, but it’s really small, and with two kids, even a little clutter is unsettling.

My big home goal for this year is to get rid of all the clutter. I’m making slow progress, and I’m looking forward to the end result.

Thanks for the links!
no more spending on February 29th, 2008 4:59 am

Great post!
I’m in the middle of de cluttering my house, downstairs is done. I’m selling, recycling, donating and I feel great for it. I still have upstairs to complete in March.
I also need to attempt my personal email and work email which I’m estimating will take about 6 hours!