Decluttering at the Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff

by Dana K. White

Decluttering Question #1: If I needed this item, where would I look for it first? Take it there right now. The key word is would, which is a question of instinct. No pondering or thinking or analyzing needed. The second part of question #1 is ridiculously important. Take it, right now, to the place where you’d look first. Decluttering Question #2: If I needed this item, would it ever occur to me that I already had one? This needn’t be asked if question #1 has an answer. If there is no answer to question #1, it’s likely because I wouldn’t look for it because I didn’t even know I had it. If the answer to this question is no, I stick it in the Donate Box.

By making a final decision about the fate of each item as you pick it up and then acting on that decision (trashing it, donating it, or taking it where it goes immediately), at any point when you get distracted, you’ve made progress. There are no Keep Piles or Keep Boxes to deal with later.

Give yourself permission to just declutter. Don’t worry about getting organized, and focus on getting the things you don’t need out of your home.

Resist the urge to be super-duper efficient and throw everything into a box so you can deliver items to their “where would I look first?” homes on one big trip through the house at the end of the project.

Keep Boxes don’t work.

Keep Boxes let me justify waiting to put things away. They’re neat little procrastination holders. I’m still working through Keep Boxes that have been in my garage since we moved twelve years ago. If I put things away immediately, I’m done. If I stick things in a Keep Box, I have “empty that Keep Box” on my mental to-do list indefinitely.

But, y’all, I had to eliminate emotions from my decluttering process. If I let emotions guide me, either good emotions or bad ones, I spiraled down a winding path of crazy. And I didn’t get much decluttering done.

let the container make the tough decisions.

I just have to let the shelf determine how many I can keep.

Ultimately, every question comes down to the Container Concept. Do you have the space to keep these things? If not, what are you willing to get rid of so you can keep them?