Decluttering Methods

Those of you who know us will attest to three things:

1) The basement will never be finished. Ever. It may possibly be usable in the near future, but it will never be finished. Until it is finished, stacks of stuff destined for the basement rule the upstairs.

2) We are drowning in clutter. We constantly fight this battle, and we seem to take endless loads of boxes to the Goodwill, but no matter how much we get rid of there is still too much waiting to ambush us when our backs are turned.

3) We’d far rather spend a day planning how to do something, with cool charts, graphs, lists and systems, than actually do anything productive to finish the basement or fight clutter.

So, ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you….

The Wonderfulpages.com Decluttering Flowchart PDF

Jocularity aside, this is actually a serious piece of work that is the result of literally hours of discussion. We were discussing with the kids how to decide what to keep and what to get rid of. Explaining to a 7 year old which items in his overflowing “stuff” drawer to keep is difficult. Deciding what things in my “stuff” drawer to keep is difficult. Hence, a flowchart. The chart should be good for both items and paperwork, not so good for books. We’re working on the one for books, but that one’s a bit more complex. We care more about some of our books than about most of our stuff. :)

Sentimental clutter is the big killer. We’ve decided to keep only one item from each important stage of our lives (you decide what the important stages are) and take photos of the rest before getting rid of them. Harsh? Yes. Necessary with 7 bodies in 1200 square feet 24 hours a day? Yes.

Some clarifications:
“Assign a place” means to decide exactly where the permanent home for this item is. If that place doesn’t exist (on the shelf that won’t be hung until after the room is painted) then a temporary specific place is found. Like “in the box for stuff that will go on that shelf”, not “back on the top of my dresser with this other stuff I don’t know what to do with”.

“File or place in secondary storage” means to place the paper in the proper place in the filing cabinet, not in a pile of stuff to be filed later. You and I both know it won’t.

“Display, file or secondary storage after documenting” is for keepsakes. Displaying on a shelf or in a photo frame, filing special papers, storing things you want to keep but not display. “After documenting” means that the reason that the thing is special should be typed or written on a card and stored with the item, or if it won’t destroy the value of the item, written right on the item. (All of our Christmas decorations have the owner, giver and year marked on them in superfine sharpie).

“Discard” means “get it out of my house”. It may mean trash, it may mean recycling, it may mean Goodwill, it may mean the neighbours, it may mean someone else in your family, but get it out of there before you change your mind.

“Will you be able to find it elsewhere when you need it?” means “Can I look this information up on the internet easily if I ever need it?” for paperwork, or “Is there another more generic tool that I also own that can do this job?” for gadgets. You get the idea.

Tell us about your own decluttering methods!

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There was a box in the basement full of spare parts to a whatchamacallit that we don’t own anymore. It was on the floor of the basement between the stairs and my office. Only now that it’s gone do I realize the mental energy that it took to avoid thinking about it. I blocked it out of my sight every morning and evening. I stepped around it and never really noticed it. If I calculate it out, including lunch and bathroom breaks, that box had made me walk at least 3 extra kilometers in the last couple of years.

Now that it’s gone, I feel lighter somehow. The open space on the floor truly makes me smile. Not only do I have less distance to go, I step lighter while getting there. The day before it left, if you’d asked me what was on the floor in front of my office, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. Was there even anything there? The amount of denial that went in to simply having that box sit on the floor is incredible.

I want to save an emotion in a bottle. Just one. I want to save that feeling I get when I walk straight across a large open space on the basement floor that I’ve been walking around for nearly as long as we’ve had the house.

I want to keep the lightness and joy that comes from having the donations door at the Goodwill close between me and the boxes of junk that I’ve been hosting in my basement and in the back of my brain for longer than my 11 year old has been talking.

MrsPages always laughs that I have a song lyric to go with any situation. I wish I had more scripture up there, but sometimes the song lyrics work too:

It’s hard to imagine the freedom we find
From the things we leave behind.

– Michael Card, from his truly incredible album Poiema.

A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.

We have a problem in our home. We apparently don’t know how to deal with all of God’s tremendous blessings. We are drowning in stuff. It doesn’t matter how many times I seem to put the piles away, more silently creep in to replace them.

Then I stumbled upon the The Colossal Clutter Clean-Up and printed off their journal and am slowly (excruciatingly slow, I might mention) working my way through this little plan.

I am very optimistic about succeeding because this is the first time I’ve seem someone address the real root cause of clutter - spiritual warfare! And when the real cause is understood, then success becomes more attainable.

I have experienced times of need and times of abundance. In any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of contentment, whether I go satisfied or hungry, have plenty or nothing. I am able to do all things through the one who strengthens me. Philippians 4:12-13

So for a little accountability, I’m posting a Before picture of the clutter currently residing in our dining room.