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

by Dana K. White

Is this stuff making the life you have harder to live? Are you giving priority to things that never happened over the things that are happening now?

Throw away trash. Get rid of stuff you hate. Clear visible spaces of stuff that has an established, nonemotional place elsewhere in the home. Focus on neutral stuff. One of two things will happen: You’ll end up with space to give these dreams a home and yourself room to live well. Or your perspective will change as you begin valuing space over stuff—and living now instead of in the past or the future—and this Dream Clutter will look very different to you by the time you tackle it. Either way, your house will be better off.

Do not underestimate the need to prioritize according to visibility. Every single time you work on your home, follow the Visibility Rule.

Replacing old things as new things come in is the key to maintaining any decluttering progress you make.

Plan for the future and acknowledge the past, but live now. Commit to creating a home that makes living now fun.

A Donate Spot is essential to living a lifestyle of decluttering. It is the designated place where the entire family knows to take something if we realize we no longer need it.

Reality: While I’m busy searching for the best way to do something, I’m not getting anything done. Meanwhile, the problem gets worse and is much harder to solve when I finally get around to solving it.