5 Tactics To Get the Clutter Under Control

It's the end of January, and that means the buzz of the holidays is wearing off and now we're well into the "need for getting things done." Your resolutions for the year may or may not have fallen by the wayside, but the gifts you were given are still scattered around your home. Some have found places where they belong, some might not have. So what are you supposed to do? The 'easy' answer is to do what many busy people do, ignore it. The more realistic answer might be to stare at it until you get annoyed and chuck it out. For some, though, there is a third option. 'Organizing' or 'decluttering' depends on your search term of choice. Many of us struggle with it, so we're tackling 5 different ways you can declutter your home as we go through the new year.

A quick note. Some or all of these methods might not work for you. They might work for specific types of items and not for others. The point of this article isn't to force you to stick to one method for the rest of the time. The point is to help you to find a method that works for you and your home. To find organization and peace with what you have in a way that is uniquely yours.

The Ski Slope

Let's start off looking not at individual items but at the mess as a whole. For many of us, that's overwhelming and can lead to putting off cleaning for longer than you meant to. One way to tackle that is the Ski Slope method. This method was developed by therapist-turned-interior decorator Anita Yokota. Instead of focusing on one type of item, Anita suggests working your way across a room from one side to the other the way you might tackle a mountain. You let your brain focus on tidying up and decluttering one area before you cross the room and work on a different area. As you go from area to area, you'd be sorting things into one of three categories, keep, give or dump. You can have boxes, or you might label different items with sticky notes. Whatever works for you. As you work your way through, you not only declutter your space, but you also end up decluttering your brain as well.

The Flow Method

The Flow Method is our next concept. This one focuses on organizing what you have instead of decluttering. Here, we're working under the idea that you already have your room decluttered, and now you're trying to put everything into a specific place. The flow method works from the concept that every room has a certain 'flow' to it, the way a river would. You flow around a room, moving from place to place working in different areas at different times. You might go back and forth between areas, but you'll still keep the relevant items near to where an area is. So if you're working in your kitchen for example, you might keep your dishes near your dishwasher, all of your pots and pans near your stove, and all of your spices in the same area you do your food prep. This keeps everything together for when you're working on specific projects.

One In One Out

This one is an interesting take compared to the others as it's a much slower way of looking at things. For every new item you bring in your home, you need to remove something else. Now, this doesn't apply to things like food, or repairing something. But books? Clothes? Shoes? Blankets and pillows? All of those can have this rule applied to them and it helps you to question "do I need this, or do I just want to splurge on something?"

Quarantine Method

Although the term might not appeal to many of us, the concept is one we're all familiar with at this point. Take a selection of things you can't quite get rid of and pack them up. Write a date on the outside of the box and set a reminder in your calendar of choice, say six months. If after that time has passed and you can't remember what's in the box, and you haven't needed what's in it? Then feel free to donate it or gift it to someone else who can make better use of it.

KonMari Method

This might be the most popular method currently. Between her books and her tv show with Netflix, and the various magazine articles, many people know Marie Kondo's philosophy of "does it spark joy?" Now, the question is, what does that mean for those of us that haven't deeply interacted with Ms. Kondo's world? The idea is, "does this thing make you happy?" For every item in your home, you should ask this, and if the answer is "no," then you donate it. Now, for the items that you say "yes" to, you find a place for them. The idea is to go through every 'category' of item over time and remove anything that doesn't make you happy. From there, you will find a place for each of these items. In theory, you will end up with far fewer items to find space for. The flip side, though, and the one that many people miss, is that you're not getting rid of everything. You're just getting rid of things that you don't love. If you love your entire library? Then keep it. If you love all of the tiny ceramic frogs that you own? Keep them. It's not a matter of "keep only the best" or "keep only X number of things." That is why this method seems to have gained so much attention, at least from where we're sitting.

Do you think any of these will work for you? Which one are you interested in trying? Let us know in the comments below or over on our Facebook page. As always, we love to hear from you!

If your appliances are driving you insane and not the items scattered around your house, we can help with that. You can reach out to us via our contact page or by giving us a call at ((214) 599-0055). We'll work with you to find a date and time that works with your schedule to ensure we get your appliances running again. A stove smoking when you're just preheating the oven? Is your refrigerator not getting cold enough? Is your dryer sounding like it's trying to shake the house apart? It doesn't matter. At Appliance Rescue Service, we aim to get your home running smoothly again.