Our 5 Favorite De-Clutter Tips

1. "But I Might Need It One Day"
Most of us save all sorts of things that we might use one day. Very few of us will ever use more than one thing in twenty that we keep "just in case". Why save 25 empty mayo jars when you only use two a year? Recycle them. Do you have four potato peelers? Keep your best one and give away the rest. Are you really ever going to make that craft project? Share it with someone who will.

2. Stay On Top of It
Try to create a schedule that would allow you to spend 15 minutes a day, or 1 hour a week, working on organizing your home. If you commit to this effort toward removing the clutter from your home you will start seeing results instantly.

3. Create Rules
Use the “one in, two out” rule. Whenever you bring in an item into the house, you have to throw away two other items. Clothing rule: If you haven’t worn an item in 6 months, sell or donate it.

4. Love Your Local Library
Use the library for your reading materials then donate back to the library. Sort through those paperbacks gathering dust on your bookshelf and donate them. It's hard to say no to a 4-year magazine subscription when it costs approximately 11 cents an issue, but it's only a good deal if you're actually going to read them. Pick one or two favorites, cancel the rest, then gather up all of your back issues and drop them off at the local hospital.

5. Tame the Toys
Do your children play with the same favorite toys every day while the rest lay buried in the toy chest? Toss them! (But not in front of the kids of course!). If there are things they don't play with but you think they still like, put them in a box for a few months and trade them out with some of the other stuff when they get bored with what they have.

Our Favorite De-Clutter Perspective

What's It All Mean: A New Perspective On The ‘Stuff’ In Your Life
by Monica Ricci

On the surface, organizing is about time, space, money, and stuff. Underneath, it’s about inner clarity, strength, and the choices we make every day. When life is disorganized and complicated on the outside, very often it’s a reflection of what’s going on inside a person...a barometer of sorts. Bottom line is that people are different, circumstances are different and I certainly don’t claim to know it all. But there is one thing I do know, and that is this: Stuff is stuff.

Like an anchor to the past, your stuff holds you in its grip, never letting you fully look to the future, to what could be. Instead it forces you to look at, and to live among what was, what might have been, or what will never be.

Stuff is not love, it’s not anger, it’s not sadness or grief. It’s not happy or sad, it’s not good or bad. It has no feelings or thoughts, it can’t laugh with you or cry with you, and it doesn’t get hurt when you throw it against the wall in frustration. It’s not your friend or your enemy. It holds no opinions or grudges or judgments. Because it’s not human.

You see, your stuff is just like everyone else’s. It’s paper and ink and plastic. It’s smooth or rough, soft or solid, it’s glass and wood and leather. It’s colored fabric and wax and metal and stone. It means nothing but what you tell it to mean. And in this very fact lies freedom! Because what you tell yourself that your stuff means will either free you from its chains or enslave you.

Today I challenge you to change the way you think about your stuff. Take a good look around with new eyes. Look at your paper and ink and plastic and wood. And know that no matter what you tell yourself, stuff isn’t anything but stuff. So keep in your life only what is truly special, useful or meaningful, and free the rest to benefit someone else.
When you free yourself of stuff, time commitments and all other things no longer valuable, you are then free to pursue the things you enjoy, spend time with those you love, find what feeds your soul and gives you purpose.