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Rise To The Challenge

Clutter: A Definition

For the purposes of this course, I am going to define clutter as:

• Too many things
• The wrong things
• Things in the wrong place

Lightening the Load

Our homes should be a little piece of paradise – a safe and pleasant retreat where we can feel in total control, and rest from the pressures of the world.

Surrounded by order and harmony, nourished by the presence of beautiful things, home is the one place where we can create our vision of loveliness and truly feel at peace.

But so many of us don’t have that kind of home!

• Living rooms piled high with papers, magazines, post, toys, unwanted gifts and useless souvenirs, over-due bills, clothes, and unwashed cups and mugs.
• Bedrooms strewn with clothes, shoes, coats, supper bowls, undies, spare things like ironing boards and exercise equipment that won’t fit anywhere else. There are usually a few coffee mugs lurking quietly as well...
• Kitchens filled with unused appliances, unwashed crockery and food that passed its sell-by-date – in my experience there’s actually no bottom limit to how bad a kitchen can get so I won’t continue.
• The same is true of the cluttered bathroom – let’s just say that, for those of us who have fallen prey to clutter, it’s seldom the peaceful bath-time retreat, lit with candles and smelling heavenly, that magazines so heartbreakingly describe.

Add in an attic, garage or any other “dead space” filled with stored items and all in all, it’s enough to make the outside world, despite its hustle and bustle, look pleasant and calm!

The main burden caused by all these out-of-place/unwanted/excess items (see my definition of clutter above) isn’t just the misery and inconvenience of living with clutter, it’s the guilt and shame that comes about from having a home that is out of control.

Let’s Get Started

The very first step I’d like you to take right now is to visualise a great big metal dustbin, all shiny and new and about to be carried away by a smiling binman, who will whistle a merry tune as he carts it out of your life.

And in that dustbin I’d like you to place all your guilt, all your feelings of not being a good housekeeper, mother or father, husband or wife – whatever negative, unhelpful feelings you hold about yourself that are caused by the chaos in your home.

You will not be needing them as you now begin the six-week journey to an organised home.

I’m not saying this as a brash, magnanimous gesture – I’m saying it for a very good reason.

Any guilt you feel will wear you down and blindside you if you allow it to stay. It’ll stop you taking a clear look at your clutter and it’ll make the whole subject so painful, and so much like one big long-lasting downer, that you’ll sabotage yourself and risk not making progress.

Trust me, I’ve been there – so bin that guilt right now and while you’re at the bin, drop in any shame that’s been caused by having unexpected visitors seeing your cluttered home, be they doctors, landlords, repair technicians, relatives or friends.

I am not advising you to list “Ten Bad Things My Home Tells Me About Myself” or similar, because I suspect you already know those things, inside-out.

We are moving forwards not backwards, and as of today any negative thinking about yourself related to your home is unwanted clutter and needs to be binned as fast as possible, not pored over and dissected.

You are not a bad person, you are not alone, and you are about to create a better way of living in your home. Ready?

Let’s move on to the reality of your physical clutter and look at what we can do about it.

Tools

First off you need to line up the tools that will help you streamline your possessions and assist in the decluttering process.

These normally include the following:

• Storage boxes
• Box files
• Clothes hangers (wooden ones preferably, not wire, unless buying them will strain your budget)
• Bin bags
• A scrap book or two if you collect cuttings, magazines, newsapers or letters – and some paper glue as well

There are also a few little helpers that you’ll need once you’re got started such as:

• A vacuum cleaner
• Dustpan and brush
• Dusters
• Sponge-backed scourers
• Rubber gloves
• Kitchen roll
• Washing up liquid
• White vinegar and/or bleach

Don’t overdo it on these, keep it simple – most specialist surface cleaners and other products aren’t essential and this is about decluttering, not recluttering! I have done massive amounts of work in incredibly cluttered homes using just those few things, they are cost-effective and they work.

Round up your tools and make sure your vacuum’s emptied out and in good working order, but for goodness sake don’t put off getting started until you have everything on that list – which brings us to an important point.

Perfectionism

If you feel unable to do any decluttering until you have several hours straight, or a weekend, or a long weekend with Bank Holiday and you feel in the mood and there’s nothing better to do – stop right now!

Perfectionism can easily become an “all or nothing” trap in which you won’t do a bit of decluttering because you can’t do all of it, and won’t do a bit of housework because you don’t have time to do it perfectly.

Take a look around your home and see how well that approach has served you so far – in other words, see if the “nothing” part has been heavily dominating the equation.

If you don’t like the results, make a brave choice right now to settle for less than perfection to begin with, because at least that way you can start to make progress, and the fine-tuning can come later.

While it’s true that “proper preperation prevents pitifully poor performance” (to quote the polite version) it’s also true that if you don’t start doing something, it won’t get done.

And for goodness sake, don’t wait until you are in the mood to declutter – if you were prone to having those kinds of moods regularly, you wouldn’t be in this pickle, so you might as well stop waiting for something that’s unlikely to happen.

Make action, not perfection, your keynote here and let’s look at the second phase – assessing your allies.

The Team

Ready, willing and able to cart away your clutter are the following parties:

• Local council – both recycling schemes and domestic rubbish pick-ups, and most councils will also collect heavy/bulky goods from inside your home for a very small fee
• Licensed waste disposal companies - usually listed in the small ads at the back of local papers - it's always worth ringing them to compare prices with council services if you're disposing of large amounts of rubbish
• Friends and family – tell people what you are getting rid of, eg clothes, appliances you don’t use, books, and so on and give them the opportunity to help themselves. If your home isn’t up to visitors yet, offer to pop round with the goods, but set aside one specific day for that, or nominate a family member to do it for you, and don’t let it become a chore.
  Those around you can also get hands-on and help you with the practical part – but again, be sensible and don’t rope in anyone who’s likely to make you feel judged and guilty because that will be completely counter-productive
• Charity shops – they cannot re-sell complete tat so save your better stuff for them, but do ask if they have a deal whereby they can recycle unwearable gear – some charity shops sell fabrics by weight to companies who manufacture fillings for upholstery, and even old shoes and leather items can be re-used in this way
• e-bay – again, don’t overthink this one or allow it to become another obstacle to the critical work of getting started, but if you’re reasonably web-savvy and have a camera why not try and sell a few odds and ends on e-bay?
• Professional declutterers and organisers – increasingly plentiful and highly effective in dealing with clutter, and an option to bear in mind if you don’t feel you can “go it alone” and want expert help

But your best ally right now is going to be yourself because you have made the commitment to start dealing with your clutter, and in honour of that you need to take the next step and begin to ask yourself – what do I want?

What Do You Want?

For some people a comfortable home is one in which they can more or less walk about without falling over too many things.

Francis Bacon’s infamously chaotic studio is a testimony to the fact that streamlined tidiness isn’t always essential to success. You can see a photo of his studio at this page - www.hughlane.ie/fb_studio/index.html if you want to see some artistic chaos!

At the other end of the spectrum there are people for whom harmony comes from stark minimalism, and just one cushion out of place represents distracting clutter.

In between those extremes, there are the rest of us who have differing ideas about how much stuff we’d like to have in our homes, both on show and stored away, and what I’d like you to do right now is to get in touch with your own inner vision of your perfect home.

It’s Your Home

Creating a comfortable home is not a “one-size-fits-all” situation, and while all those TV decluttering shows seem to show that the fewer items you own, the happier you’ll be, it’s not always that simple and you do not need to comply with that ideal.

It’s even possible that you will be doing minimal disposing of things if your clutter fits mostly into the category of “right thing, wrong place.”

But I’m guessing that you’ve not invested in this course just so that you can decide to leave your cluttered home as it is, so, since you’ll be making changes it’s as well to know in advance what you want the end result to be.

Grab a notepad - don’t bother buying a new one unless you don’t have one at all, because we are not looking to add to the amount of possessions you have right now. Just grab anything you can reasonably write in and keep handy.

Write down a list of ten words or phrases that describe the feeling you would like your home to have.

Some examples from my own list include:

• Bright and sunny
• Eclectic and colourful
• Welcoming
• Relaxed

These are among the things I’d aim for in any new place and every time I’ve moved I’ve recreated them as thoroughly as possible.

Think of your own words or phrases that describe the feel you’d like, and intially don’t be too put off by your current reality – by which I mean, if you live in a dark two-room basement flat don’t be afraid of words like light and space.

Remember, if you don’t know what you’d like, you have no chance of creating it.

Check in with any people who share your home, but don’t invite all and sundry to offer their opinions – you don’t want to get distracted by multiple viewpoints here, you’re just outlining your personal goals.

Your Style

After that, write a few sentences that describe the style you’d like for your home – it could be modernist or retro, Art Nouveau or Japanese, or whatever best describes your taste.

If you have several different styles in your home, do a brief sentence for each room, such as my own example:

“My bedroom is Japanese in style with low furniture and minimal decoration. My front room is my take on 1930’s style with lots of light and plants…”

It may be that when you first moved in, or before you had children, or perhaps hit a bumpy patch in life, your home was bobbing along comfortably and things weren’t out-of-hand.

Take a few moments now to recall any times when your home was pleasing and uncluttered, and write a short paragraph or two that describes that useful memory.

An example taken from one of my clients, a single mum called Catherine, is as follows:

“Before I had Jason I made sure every evening that the front room was in order and I’d straighten up, and wash-up, before bed. In the morning my bright white kitchen would be immaculate and the kettle would be filled, so I could get the coffee on!

My bedroom was My Space and it didn’t have toys everywhere, and I’d hang my work clothes up carefully because it cut down on the ironing.”

Your Life

Everyone needs their home to fulfill different purposes – mine needs space for seeing clients, space to work on my computer, and dog-friendly surfaces for my hound as well as the essentials like a place to store and cook food, bathe, sleep and so on.

The last bit of list making I’m going to ask you to do is to consider if you, and any others who live there, have any special purposes or demands for your home – does it need to be toddler-friendly, do you need space to work from home, pursue a hobby or craft, or perhaps exercise, meditate or pray daily?

All of these require some small considerations to be made – since we are going to be looking at strategies that will help you to live fully in your home next week, we need to bear these uses in mind during the planning stages so that we can proceed smoothly once we’ve got started.

The Nitty-Gritty

Okay, you’ve binned your guilt, assembled your tools, allies and vision, and you’re now ready to make a start on that clutter.

As mentioned, clutter comes in three kinds, and the first kind we are going to attack this week is the “The wrong things” class.

Just to clarify this is the class of completely useless stuff, “junk,” which you can part with immediately to create more space.

I would like you right now (or if you’re reading this outside your home, as soon as you’re inside) to commit to doing just ten minutes of bagging and binning anything that you do not want or need and getting it out of the house.

You can recycle it or you can put it in the rubbish bin but make sure that you dispose of it permanently.

After you’ve done that, I’d like you to make an appointment with yourself to do one solid hour of decluttering within the next 24 hours, at the very minimum.

Your can write this in your notebook, or you can fix the appointment to the fridge, or put it in your calender, but make sure it’s confirmed in writing and stick to it.

Don’t get bogged down in details and over-thinking – recycling and re-using are noble aims but right now if your home is in chaos you are not helping anyone if you refuse to take action until you can recycle everything.

Get your home running smoothly and the opportunities for environment-friendly living will be much greater.

Thought For The Week:

“I deserve a beautiful home.”

Actions For The Week:

1. Get started

Commit to completing all the steps above, assembling your tools, lining up your allies and writing out your vision for your home.

If guilt or perfectionism creep back into your thinking, acknowledge them then move past them – they will only get in the way and are a form of mental clutter.

Keep the Thought For The Week in the forefront of your mind and repeat it if you start feeling a bit low about the whole situation.

2. Mark the time

Make as many appointments for One Hour Sessions as possible this week. Plan ahead, using allies from your list to help you move the clutter out of your home, and begin the sessions by removing any stuff that you do not want, if necessary working around the “right thing, wrong place” items you find for now.

Start with a corner near the door and put on some inspiring music while you work. If you don't know where to start, just start anywhere and if there was a "correct" place it will soon become obvious, if not, why worry about it because at least you're making progress.

Don’t overthink things, and don’t force yourself to go past that hour – we’re avoiding all-or-nothing thinking and if one days’ session turns into an eight-hour marathon you are unlikely to feel motivated to pick it up again the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that...

An organised home is a work in progress so keep your enthusiasm under control and don’t wipe yourself out going crazy.

3. Ten minute tidy

Begin to do just five to ten minutes of tidying up (dealing with “right thing, wrong place” clutter) at night before you go to bed. This will make suprisingly big inroads in one week, and it will also allow you to wake up to more order each day.

Encourage everyone else in your home to take up the ten minute habit, if you don’t live alone. People who live together share equal responsibilities and ten minutes isn’t going to tire out even the most hard-pressed executive or shift worker.

4. Limit incoming items

Avoid bringing anything new into your home right now that you don’t strictly need. You won’t need to be on such a strict “diet” forever, but the last thing you need is to take one step forwards and two steps back at this early point.

Limit shopping to essentials like food, preferably planned out in advance, and don’t expose yourself to temptation – give up window shopping and ask that the people who live with you restrict their intake as well.

Try not to add to any existing areas of clutter by raising your game a little with the daily chores, so that you’re not adding to the problem just by living your life. Begin to be aware of picking up after yourself as much as possible, and encourage others to do the same.

5. Be observant

As you work away this week doing your One Hour Sessions and quick tidies here and there, try to notice what one area, or kind of item, is causing you the most trouble.

Don’t make a big issue of it but note it down ready for later on in the course, when we’ll be looking at prioritising and fine-tuning your decluttering. Knowledge is power and knowing your weak spots will put you ahead of the game when it comes to your new clutter-free lifestyle.

This is Module 1 of our new online course, Your Organised Home, by Chandra Nova. You can book the complete six-week online course here.