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

by Dana K. White

I’ve consciously decided to view my home as a place to live instead of a place to store all my great ideas and their attached stuff. I’ve done all that even though it was completely unnatural to me.

I have a Clutter Threshold, and it’s unique to me. My Clutter Threshold is the point at which stuff becomes clutter in my home. When I’m living above my Clutter Threshold, there’s more stuff in my home than I can handle, and my house is consistently out of control. Living under my Clutter Threshold helps my home stay more naturally under control. I found mine (and you’ll find yours) through decluttering.

I accepted that people with homes that are consistently under control prefer living with regret over living with clutter.

And that was when I made a conscious choice to live in the phase of life I was in. Right then. I decided to stop assuming I knew what I’d love to already have in the future.

Living for now became my new goal: living in the house we have, in the city where we are, and in the moment when we’re alive.

Once I understood that the purpose of a container is to contain, I saw that though the container held the scarves, its most important purpose was to limit the number of scarves I kept. Once the scarf container was full, I knew how many scarves I could keep.

Accept the limitations of the space you have, and declutter enough that your stuff fits comfortably in that space.

I just had to decide which book(s) to remove so there was space for my new one. And that is the One-In-One-Out Rule. If a container is full, and I need to put something in it, I have to remove something from the container to make room for the thing I’m putting in.

So I created the Visibility Rule: when I declutter, I start with the most visible spaces first. This ensures the results of my efforts will be visible, which will inspire me to keep going, and my decluttering energy will increase instead of being sucked away by a project that gave me nothing to show for my effort.

On a normal, not-decluttering-today day, I recognize junk mail for the future clutter it is and choose to walk straight to the trash can or recycling bin the moment I bring it into my house.

But if you’re constantly frustrated because you can’t make sustainable progress, repeat to yourself, Visibility, visibility, visibility.

As I touch each item, I make a final decision about that item. There are no halfway points, no put-st-here-for-nows, no Procrastination Stations.

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 ...

It’s not a question of how many boxes of aluminum foil you

should have; it’s a question of how many boxes of aluminum foil will fit on your shelf.

When a paper pile overwhelms me and I find myself pretending it doesn’t exist, I give myself permission to simply look. To feel absolutely no obligation to make any decisions at all. Just to look at each piece of paper in the pile and only get rid of the ones that are easy. Every single time I do this, I reduce the pile by more than half.

The number one thing I have done to dramatically reduce the paper clutter in our home is to walk straight from the mailbox to the trash can (or recycle bin, if you have one) and immediately throw away anything we don’t need. Immediately. Right away. Without stopping.

Step 5.1: Consolidate Put rice together, pasta together, and jars of sauces together. If there’s a single serving of dried pinto beans in the bottoms of four different bags, combine them into one. Canned goods go in one place, grouped according to what’s in each can.

I remind myself that one of my reasons for thinking I need a humongous fridge is cultural. A giant refrigerator is normal in my part of the world. But the main reason I once thought I needed an even bigger fridge was that I had too much stuff in the one I had.

What’s that? You have no idea what to do with garbanzo beans? Well, there’s this thing called the Internet, and you can look up “fast and easy garbanzo beans recipe.” Or just make hummus.

Garbanzo beans are the same thing as chickpeas, and if you drain them and blend them with some olive oil and spices, they taste amazing spread on pita bread or dipped with a carrot.

I Stuff Shifted for years, even though I called it decluttering. I moved things from one area to another, assuming the problem was that I hadn’t found the right way to store it, not that I had too much. When a moment of panic happened (because someone was coming over), I moved all homeless items to the bedroom to get them out of the way. The master bedroom was my dumping ground.

Clothing is strangely emotional in nature. The Duhs are already gone, so I ask a pickier question: What has one characteristic I hate?

That’s one of the best perks of decluttering: awareness of what you have.

All that was a nice way to say: get rid of your own junk before you tell your husband to get rid of his. Clean up your own house before you tell Aunt Harriet you’re coming over to clean up hers.

I once heard that for people to be willing to change, they first need to feel accepted as they already are.

I also don’t suffer from Powdered Butt Syndrome in this relationship. Dave Ramsey refers to this syndrome often when callers to his radio show ask how to advise their own parents about finances. Basically, he means that no one likes taking advice from someone whose butt they once powdered. It’s reality.

My mother’s best marriage advice was to never say “I told you so.” While everyone likes to be right, no one likes to be wrong. And no one likes the person who reminds them they were wrong.

I didn’t have an exact plan, but I collected things as they conveniently crossed my path, assuming Future Me would know exactly what to do with these things. She was going to have it all together, of course. I’m committed to living for now—for the situation and life stage I am in.