CLUTTER, CLUTTER everywhere!

Cleaning professionals say that getting rid of excess clutter reduces housework by 40%!  When someone refers to things in their home as “collecting dust”, they’ve hit the nail on the head!  Having lots of stuff around—like knick-knacks, piles of mail, stacks of grocery bags, and newspapers does more than clutter up a room.  It makes cleaning much more difficult and provides the ideal place for dust and it’s allergens to accumulate.

But…where do you begin?

Facing a backlog of clutter is often overwhelming. Tackle the piles with the S*P*A*C*E formula, to streamline your home and give those dust mites their walking papers!

           

SORT

·                                Circle the room, handling everything.  Ask yourself 2 questions of each item:  Do I use it?  Do I love it? Do not keep items that used to be important to you, or might be important someday. Keep only those items which are important to you now. 

·                                Sort “keepers” into categories, putting like with like.  For example, if sorting your closet, put all the T-shirts in one pile, the sweaters in another, jeans in a third, etc.  This allows you to eventually see everything you own, by category, at a glance.

·                                Sort discards into labeled cartons: trash, giveaway, tag sale, belongs elsewhere.  This last box relates to items you want to keep, but belong elsewhere—for example, in another room, or in storage. 

PURGE

·                                Eliminate duplicates, triplicates, broken and outdated items. Avoid the trap of keeping things just because you paid good money for them.  If you aren’t using something, give it to someone who will.

·                                Adopt-a-charity to donate your giveaways to.  Knowing your belongings are going to people you care about makes it easier to part with them.

·                                Consider off-site storage if you have items you can’t bear to part with (archival tax records, college papers, memorabilia, and extra furniture). It will get the items out of the house without the trauma of permanently purging them.           

ASSIGN

·                                Assign a single, consistent location for each item.  For example, be specific as to which shelf your T-shirts will sit on and which drawer will store your belts.

·                                Store items at their point of use for effortless retrieval and clean up.  For example, store books on shelves next to your reading chair, store cooking utensils in a drawer next to the stove.

·                                Keep accessibility and safety in mind when deciding what goes where.  Don’t jam things too tightly in a drawer or stack things so high on a shelf that it is hard to reach the items on the bottom.  Avoid placing heavy or fragile items too high on a shelf.

CONTAINERIZE

·                                Use covered plastic or metal containers for each category of keepers to store similar items together, and keep them dust-free.

·                                Measure and/or count the items you will store before shopping to ensure you buy the right size.   Buy containers in attractive colors that match the décor of your home.

·                                Label containers whenever possible to be sure everyone in the house follows your system.

EQUALIZE

·                                Put things away as you use them.  Daily clean-up into well-labeled containers takes no more than 3-5 minutes per room.

·                                Follow the “One in, One Out” Rule.  Before you acquire something new, decide what you will eliminate to make room for it.

·                                Possessions grow like weeds.  Schedule ½ day twice per year to prune any excess that has accumulated.