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VICKI
NORRIS
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May 2004 Article Includes Contribution by Vicki Norris
©Vicki
Norris, Restoring Order® 2004
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act like you’re moving...
…and six more
innovative strategies to kiss clutter
good-bye
Clutter is that stuff you don’t
notice, use, or care about until it’s time to get rid of
it. Yet at that precise moment, although you know
better, letting go of your Riverdance
instructional video or those 25 blank notepads feels
like smothering a piece of your soul. You are plagued
with concerns: What if you need it someday? Why did you
buy it? What would Antiques Roadshow say? Enough
is enough. Clutter clouds your mind, trips you up, slows
you down, and devours the stuff surrounding it. Carting
the junk away is the easy part. Overcoming the mental
block is what’s hard. In the following pages,
professional organizers share strategies to get you
going. Choose the one that appeals to you most—and send
those Riverdancers high-stepping out the door.
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Written by amanda hinnant
Photographs by tara striano |
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2. assess your rooms
Walk through your house with a pen
and a notebook, writing down the activities that take
place in each room and the items associated with those
activities. “Then ‘purpose’ your space,” says Vicki
Norris, president of Restoring Order, an organizing
company in Portland, Oregon. “Note your desired use for
each room, even if you are not using it that way
currently.” Remove anything that doesn’t relate to your
proposed activity for that space. If you want to use
your bedroom only for sleeping and getting dressed,
relocate anything that doesn’t relate to that: documents
stored in the closet, a trade journal you’ve been
meaning to read, sewing supplies, or anything else that
distracts you from the main purpose of the room.
toss-it tips
Start with one room, but keep the whole house in
mind.
Think of rooms that have multiple purposes as
several smaller areas, so it’s clear where items should
be returned if they stray. If gift-wrapping is the
designated activity for a certain part of the study and
you find a spool of ribbon in the kitchen, you’ll know
exactly where it belongs, and so will other family
members.
why it works
This strategy lays the foundation for long-term
change. “By taking an ‘aerial view’ of your entire home,
you’ll see how certain activities and their supplies are
strewn throughout the home — like paperwork,
memorabilia, or toys,” Norris explains.
Tackling clutter without knowing your priorities can
be counterproductive. “People who take a ‘tidy up’
approach are actually rearranging rather than
organizing,” Norris says. “Sooner or later, the space
relapses to its original condition.”
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3. clean out for a worthy
cause
Getting rid of things will be
easier if you can picture someone else benefitting from
them (instead of how they just signify wasted money for
you). Pick an organization to donate to, and learn as
much as you can about it. Read the literature, check out
the website, and visit the facility, if possible.
toss-it tips
Don’t just leave your stuff outside the charity’s
storefront or in a donation bin, to be ruined by the
elements. Deliver it in person, or find out if the
organization will arrange a pickup from your home.
See if there are specific items the charity needs;
this will make those things easier to give up. If it
doesn’t accept certain items — such as that combination
NordicTrack/clothes hanger — ask if it knows of a group
that does.
If an item is truly worthless or beyond repair,
don’t make the organization deal with it. Find out the
proper way to junk it instead.
Get your kids involved, too, so they can see what
it’s like to give.
why it works
Discarded items will most likely be used, worn, or
appreciated a lot sooner in someone else’s hands than
they would in yours.
You can earn a tax deduction for donated goods. But
you are responsible for keeping track of donations,
determining their worth, and itemizing them on your tax
return.
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4. "edit" your rooms
Start in the upper left-hand corner
of one wall and start “reading” from left to right and
from top to bottom. “The room is a book, a dresser is a
chapter, each drawer is a paragraph, the boxes or trays
or Ziploc bags in the drawers are the sentences, and the
things in the containers are the words,” says Alice
Winner, an organizing consultant in Hummelstown,
Pennsylvania. “Get rid of the extra words — things —
that are making your life more complicated and
unmanageable.”
toss-it tips
Any time you feel your attention straying to another
part of the room or house, take a break or simply
repeat, “Left to right, left to right.”
Resist the urge to skip “chapters.” If you jump
around the room, dealing with a pile here and a pile
there, the room might still look cluttered after a
three-hour session.
Find a motivator for your work. Tack up an image
from a magazine or book of a room you’d like to emulate.
why it works
It’s difficult to determine the best place to plunge
into an organizing project. This eliminates that
problem: Just go straight to the upper left-hand corner
of one wall. It also curtails aimlessness, because you
always know what to tackle next.
You provide yourself with a prototype as you go. Say
you’re editing your filing cabinets, and you feel your
focus flagging as you encounter another overstuffed
folder labeled miscellaneous. Look at the drawer you’ve
just completed for a visual reminder of what all the
drawers will look like when you’re done.
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5. make organizing a team
event
Gail and David Newton, owners of
the organizing company Your House in Order, in Greeley,
Colorado, suggest finding a friend or two who support
your organizational goals and who have decluttering
needs of their own, and taking turns organizing each
other’s homes: Your house this weekend, your friend’s
the next. If you can’t find a willing friend, consider
teaming up with a professional organizer — it could be
money well spent.
toss-it tips
Make sure everyone is compatible and knows the
difference between encouragement and coercion.
The owner of the item in question should have the
final say on whether it gets tossed.
Have team celebrations when you’ve reached a certain
goal. When the kitchen is done, for example, you all get
to go out for dinner.
why it works
Your friends don’t have the same sentimental
attachment to your stuff that you do.
“Like a barn raising, organizing takes less time
with more hands,” says David Newton.
It’s fun having someone to listen to the story of
why you’re so emotionally attached to, say, a chipped
Pyrex nesting bowl — before you put it in the giveaway
pile.
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6. go shopping in your
closet
If you have a lot of clothes that
you never wear but you keep finding yourself in yet
another T.J. Maxx dressing room, try shopping at home
instead. Next time you’re putting away laundry or dry
cleaning, grab an armful of clothes that you haven’t
worn since you can’t remember when and try them on in
front of a full-length mirror, suggests Jeanine Baron,
founder of Streamliners Inc., an organizing company in
Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. Put the ones that you would
want to buy again back into circulation; donate the
rest.
toss-it tips
“The keepers must fit, be in style, and not need
major alterations or repairs,” says Baron.
Don’t let the mere fact that you paid a lot guilt
you into keeping something. Your closet is prime real
estate.
why it works
You have to deal with only a few items of clothing
at a time — not your whole closet.
If your weight has fluctuated over the years, this
method lets you pinpoint what fits now and bag memories
of your body-size history.
You might enjoy it, especially if you unearth a
long-buried treasure.
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7. put apples with
apples, oranges with oranges
To get an idea of what you own,
group like things together. Use your utensil drawer as a
model. In it you have forks, knives, and spoons, all in
their own slots, and you know there are 12 of each. Can
the same be said of your cooking tools? How many wooden
spoons do you have? Put all your slotted spoons,
spatulas, and pizza cutters in separate piles and toss
the ones you don’t need. Then group related items and
give them their own labeled drawers: stovetop supplies,
baking supplies, specialty items. “Every shelf and
drawer in your home should have a specific theme, just
like the typical sock or utensil drawer,” says Kim
Cosentino, owner of the De-Clutter Box, an organizing
company in Westmont, Illinois.
toss-it tips
Don’t limit your search for similar items to just
one room. Look all over the house for things like
scissors, stamps, and batteries, and put them in one
place.
If you have two things that serve the same function,
keep the newer or better one and chuck the other.
Start with a clean surface or drawer, then put back
only the things you use.
why it works
Once you get everything in one category together,
you can quickly assess what you own — and what you own
too much of.
If you know what you have and where it is, you won’t
waste money buying duplicates (think hair elastics).
If an item resists classification, it is easier to
deem it unworthy.
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getting started
Despite your best intentions to go
full-steam ahead, you may get sidetracked — and a little
nostalgic — as you sift through the material accretion
of your very existence. The following motivational tips
should help you keep the forward momentum.
Avoid unrealistic expectations. They mire a project
in disappointment. Organizing is a process, not a quick
fix. One drawer today; the whole desk tomorrow.
Make a date to get started. Write it on your
calendar and you’ll be more likely to do it.
Make a generous deadline. And even if you are not
done by then, celebrate what you’ve accomplished.
Remove distractions. Get a baby-sitter, turn on the
answering machine, and focus.
Keep things in transit. Set up boxes or bags for
items to be donated, repaired, or sold.
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give them the hook
To figure out which of your duds
are, in fact, duds, try this hanging technique from Kim
Cosentino, a professional organizer in Westmont,
Illinois: Hang all your clothes with the hooks opening
toward the room (this will seem like the wrong way).
After you wear an item, replace it on the hanger with
the hook opening toward the back of the closet. Each
season, you’ll be able to assess quickly which clothes
you haven’t worn, because the hangers will still be
facing the wrong way. If you still aren’t able to part
with little-used clothes, put them in a box with a label
postdated 6 to 12 months from now. If you haven’t opened
the box to get the clothes before that date, you know
you don’t need them. Bonus: The clothes are already
packed to leave your home. |
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