Four Boxes Can De-Clutter Your House

Suddenly your home looks as though it has been turned upside down and shaken. The office appears to have been ransacked.

Clutter isn’t a new problem. Even those paragons of housekeeping in the 1950s had to deal with it. Remember cartoons of avalanches cascading from opened closet doors and rugs all lumpy from things being swept under them?

In the last 40 years we have continued to collect stuff. We hold onto things out of sentiment - for the item itself, the occasion when we received it, or the giver.

We also still have lots of stuff that’s been around for a long time because - even though we complain “they don’t make things like they used to” - a lot of our possessions work for many years.

We are encouraged to find uses for things we no longer want or need rather than send them to landfills. And so we just keep adding more possessions without relinquishing what we already have.

Probably the main reason we have so much stuff is because we don’t know what else to do with it. As Barbara Hemphill, author of Kiplinger’s “Taming the Paper Tiger,” says, “Clutter is postponed decisions.” We don’t like to make the decision to get rid of something and then follow through with it.

Like it or not, that’s the only way to deal with a home that is bursting at the seams. Each item must be evaluated for its usefulness then dispensed with accordingly.

Select one room in your home to tackle first. If that’s too overwhelming, choose one wall of one room. With the goal of uncluttered living space in mind, arm yourself with several cartons boldly marked “For Someone Else,” “Put Away,” “Trash” and “Storage.”

If you’re interested in holding a garage sale, the “For Someone Else” box can be broken down into “Give Away” and “Garage Sale.”

The “For Someone Else” box is for things you really don’t care about but aren’t ready for the trash. Every town has agencies that are glad to receive used household articles to help less fortunate neighbors. Be generous with this box.

As you clear an area, you’ll find things that could be useful or attractive in another room. Put these in the “Put Away” box. But remember, the objective is to reduce the clutter, not move it around.

You’ll find some things that belong in storage. It may be hard to part with a ceramic bird purchased with an 8-year-old’s dollar or a 3-year-old’s tiny handprint on a piece of burlap.

Place your de-cluttering boxes nearby and begin to evaluate each item in your chosen area by starting at the entrance and working your way around it. Hemphill’s advice is to ask, “What is the worst thing that will happen if I don’t keep this?” about each item. Continue in this way until the area is clutter free.

At some point in your task, you may begin to notice that decisions are coming harder and harder. It’s time to end this session. Don’t force yourself to work a specific length of time or to cover a specific area, but do plan to renew your attack at a specific time. When feelings of “Just get it out of here” or “I really don’t know what to do with this stuff” seem to be your main reaction to each item, it’s better to back away. This is when you may make poor decisions and you’ll either regret the loss of certain things or have to do the job over again because you didn’t get it right the first time.

When the job is done, dispense with the boxes. Drag the trash box out for pick-up. Sort the “For Someone Else” box into smaller bags or boxes by destination and place in your car to be delivered on your next trip. Label boxes for storage to clearly identify the contents. It takes very little time to write “SUSIE christening dress, bouncing baby swing, first baby shoes.” But it can save a lot of time when you want to find one of those items and have five boxes of “Baby Stuff”. Be specific.

Now put away the things that will go somewhere else in your home.

Reducing the clutter you live with will lift your spirits and raise the comfort level of your home.

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