We’ve all started organizing projects full of motivation only to feel like we lose our way when we actually start moving things around. It’s all too easy to become overwhelmed by the decisions of what to keep and what to let go and what to do with the things we don’t want. The good news is that with a plan and a few easy techniques we can achieve our organizational goals without becoming stuck and giving up. From my work with clients, I’ve developed a decluttering process and few tricks that help us avoid the roadblocks to calmer and easier to maintain home.

Start with a plan

Before you even walk into the space you plan to declutter, ask yourself “What do I hope to accomplish?”. What is your end goal for this space? To be organized can be a little vague for goal setting so think about your frustrations with this space and what you might accomplish if this space were better organized. That plan will serve as a guide to make decluttering decisions throughout the project.

Decide before touching 

When we physically touch things, emotions and memories can overwhelm us and make decisions even more difficult. Help your brain avoid these overwhelming emotions by making decisions before you start decluttering. When I work with a client, I ask questions before we start the physical work. For example:

• What activities would be easier in this space if it were less overwhelming?

• What is your biggest frustration when you are in this space?

• What things are absolutely necessary for this space to function?

• What items are in this space that you know we can eliminate?

My questions are designed to help me help my client build a framework to make decisions easier. Building this framework or understanding means that when we actually begin working in a space, our minds will be focused on seeing if the objects in that space fit the framework. Organizing within this frame of mind is significantly more productive. 

Sort before Deciding

We make better decisions when we have context. We also make fewer decisions in total when we can see everything in a category rather than finding and deciding what to do with our possessions one by one. This is the mind saving and time saving power of sorting - categorizing things in similar groups. Instead of going through a bathroom vanity item by item, let’s sort all the makeup together and then sort again so that all primers are together, all mascaras are together, all lip glosses are together. My clients easily identify favorites and least favorites in a group and are often surprised at how quickly we can sort and edit an entire room. The context we get by seeing the whole category at once allows us to make fewer, easier, and faster decisions.

Delay hard decisions

If you are struggling with a decision, it may mean that you are not ready to make that decision and that is perfectly okay. To keep clients from mentally beating themselves up, I help client’s keep up the decluttering momentum by playing a game I call YES, NO, PASS and they have fun once we get into the swing of it. As we move through a room, all YES’s are grouped together, NO’s are grouped (or I mark them with red tape to move faster), and if a client pauses or I see uncertainty on their face, I say PASS and group/mark those items. If time allows, we come back to those items we passed on or I note a date in the future to come back to those items. The point of the game is to take advantage of easy decisions, make progress quickly, and exercise our ‘letting go’ decision skills. Agonizing over decluttering is exhausting and demoralizing but gamifying the decisions makes it fun and keeps the focus on moving forward. I know from my experience that the difficult decisions clients initially PASS on will become much less difficult as we work through the organizing process. 

Act on Decisions

When I start working with a client, I often find piles of decisions that clients have made previously still sitting around months or even years laters. It’s risky to allow decluttered things to linger in our home because they have a way of working themselves back into our stuff and we will have to do the work to declutter them again in the future. We won’t get the reward of decluttering unless we move the piles out of our homes. If you have 3 hours to devote to decluttering, schedule 2 hours to decluttering and 1 hour to disposing. Taking the actions required to recycle, shred, dispose, and donate what has been decided to be clutter allows us to reap the rewards of our hard work. I feel so strongly about this step that I include taking away decluttered items as part of my service. I love seeing the sheer relief on clients' faces when they see their decluttered things leaving with me!