Decluttering

Ever since Christmas, when I bought DKC a book on how to declutter a home, I’ve been a decluttering fiend. Up until reading that book (yes, I read it first despite the fact that I gave it to my wife. She wasn’t reading it. So I did.) I’d never been able to really get on top of clutter. Stuff just seemed to congregate in various areas of the house on its own accord. I blamed it on SPR (Spontaneous Paper Reproduction). My kitchen was usually a disaster, the area by my bed was heaped with clothes, books, and other detritus . . . it wasn’t pretty. Do I really have to give you the nitty gritty details? Suffice it to say that the only time the house got sort of cleaned was when we knew company was coming. This isn’t to say the house was dirty–it was cleaned. Just not tidy. Maybe that is a better word for it.

Anyway.

Enter this book. The author, Peter Walsh, breaks it down quite simply: picture your ideal room (bedroom, bathroom, living room, kitchen, etc.) What is its purpose? How is it used. Now, go through that room, and remove anything that doesn’t serve that purpose. Viola! Clutter is gone. The trick lies in taking a good candid look at each item you have and deciding how/if you’re using it. If you have an extensive collection of something, and you claim it’s important to you, but you keep it stuffed in a box and never look at it, is it really that important? (Case in point: I’ve collected ticket stubs for years, but I never organized them. Now, I took the stubs that were post important to me (first date with DKC, for example), and put them in an album. The ones that weren’t that important (random movie I saw in the theaters that I didn’t like anyway) I tossed.))

The next key that I’ve been following is the 10 minutes a day approach. Walsh promised that if you set aside 10 minutes each day to declutter, and stuck with it, you’d conquer the problem. I was skeptical, but I’ve been trying it–and it’s working. My kitchen is decluttered, as is my living room, my bedroom, and most of my home office now. Better yet, the areas I’ve decluttered are actually staying that way.

It’s very encouraging.

Anyway–just thought I’d share with you, the Peoples of the Internet. If you’re having trouble conquering the clutter, too . . . maybe this book would help. (No, I’m unfortunately not receiving money for this endorsement.) 🙂

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