[Organizing It All Series] Part III: Getting Rid of Clutter

This is the third part of a five-part series of posts on “Organizing It All!” I will provide you with some useful tips and suggestions on how to deal with specific spaces in your home, managing and preventing clutter, and most of all… getting rid of it. Sometimes you need just a quick fix or an easy tip to get things going…If you missed out on previsions posts you can find Part I and Part II on our blog… Enjoy.

ORGANIZING SERIES

PART THREE: Getting rid of clutter: Making the decision to get rid of something can be challenging. Here are a few of my favorite “rules” or tips on how to make that process easier:

• Attach tasks to each other- trash day, clear your refrigerator. It’s easier to remember both tasks when they go hand in hand with each other.
• If you buy one item to replace something else, get rid of two (or three).
• Understand that you only have a certain amount of space in your home, if you overstuff you will be unable to manage the stuff. It’s plain old physics.
• Do not bring anything into your home until you get control of the clutter- that means that the only shopping you can do is buying consumables (groceries and personal care items) that you need.
• The best thing to do is to empty out the area that needs to be decluttered, go through everything and only keep or put back what you need.
• Donate or Recycle everything you can, you can. Use Google and type in: donate or recycle [insert item name] and your zip code, you should be able to find places to donate or recycle most anything.
• Remember the 80/20 Rule. We only use 20% of what we have, the other 80% is just taking up space.
• Keep in mind that there is “good enough” and there is ‘perfectionism.’ One can be crippling.
• Stop procrastinating – just start with the easy stuff. Even small steps make progress.
• Work in one space until it is finished. Bouncing around is not always effective.

Part four will address Organizing Household Spaces…