Take a photo, set a timer for five minutes, and start working; then take another photo when the timer goes off. pg.57 It helps that I am not personally saying no to everything but the container itself becomes the limit! The Clutter Cycle I’m not a minimalist, and though it sounds like maybe she leans more that way, it’s a relief to find decluttering advice that doesn’t assume my end goal is to achieve a minimalist aesthetic. I assumed there was a solution lurking just beyond my current organizing abilities. Someday, when I reached that elusive State of Organization, my stuff would all work together perfectly, and I’d be glad to have whatever I already had.

She gives you a simple, step-by-step method which she explains works “whether you are planning to declutter twelve hours a day for seven days straight, or you only have five minutes today and seven minutes tomorrow”. Are you completely overwhelmed in your home? Have you tried again and again (and again) to understand why keeping it under control is so ridiculously hard for you? So you watch your friends and wonder how in the world they're NOT stressed out and confused like you are? As someone who has struggled with clutter for years, and read lots of books on the subject, this is something different. A practical, entertaining and honest guide to decluttering." - N. C. TaylerStep 4: Ask the Decluttering Questions (1. If I needed this, where would I look for it? Take it there and put it there. 2. If I needed this, would it occur to me that I already have one? If not, donate it.)

The Container Concept suggests that the container sets the boundary for how much stuff you can hold on to. Not whether you like every item you own.The steps are: 1. trash, 2. easy stuff, 3. the duhs, 4. asking the 2 questions (if I needed this item, where would I look for it? + if I needed this item, would I remember having it?), 5. make it fit into a container (shelf, box, cupboard, etc.). My favorite made-up word is deslobification. It's what I call the process through which I improved my own home from a constant state of oh-my-word-what-is-wrong-with-me to I-can-totally-do-this-even-though-it's-never-going-to-be-perfect. Going from a worse-than-bad home to a livable one is how I learned these strategies and principles, and how I found a way to translate concepts that other people seemed to be born knowing into words that make sense to me and a lot of other people.

Even if you have your home "under control" and find it easy to declutter and organize I can guarantee you that reading this book and learning from Dana will give you new insights for yourself." - Gina W. Do your best to not let stuff get in the way of your relationship with this person. Don't get personal. Focus on my nonemotional steps to working through an overwhelming mess. pg.173 You don't have to live overwhelmed by stuff—you can get rid of clutter for good! Decluttering expert Dana White identifies the emotional challenges that make it difficult to declutter and provides workable solutions to break through and make progress. But even though Decluttering Paralysis and Decluttering Regret are terms that make me sigh, this one gives me hope: Decluttering Momentum. It's a real phenomenon. By starting with easy stuff and working through the steps I'm sharing in this book, I saw visible, measurable improvement in my home. As my home changed, I changed. And decluttering got easier and easier. I'm so excited for you to experience that too. Not only does the author provide strategies, but she dives deep into how to implement them, no matter the reader's clutter level or emotional resistance to decluttering. She helps identify procrasticlutter-the stuff that will get done eventually so it doesn't seem urgent-as well as how to make progress when there's no time to declutter.

Where to Start With Our Clutter Problems

Still, onto the book: it starts with finding the decluttering mindset and its realizations. Next we move through many rooms (or parts of the room, if your hobby-place is not a room but a corner in a (living) room), then talk about helping others - which should come after you've done your own decluttering, helps to make people see you can do it - and what to do when you're about to move, or are cleaning your loved one's home after their death. Finally we get to the useful points on how to keep going doing the occasional decluttering etc., after you have finished your big decluttering life-paced project on your home. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. Her main idea is the Container Principle: seeing your closet, your refrigerator, your bookshelf, your bedroom, your pantry —hey, even your house—as a container. It is the size it is. After preliminary tidying, you decide which stays according to the limits of your "container." I might have tried to do some math. Multiply the number of days in a month with scarf-appropriate weather by some other number that entered my unnecessarily analytical brain. I might have researched scarf trends and color palettes and tried to determine which scarves were on their way out of style. them with my favorite books first, and then, once they were full, I got rid the books that didn't fit. pg.18

But even though Decluttering Paralysis and Decluttering Regret are terms that make me sigh, this one gives me hope: Decluttering Momentum. It’s a real phenomenon. By starting with easy stuff and working through the steps I’m sharing in this book, I saw visible, measurable improvement in my home. As my home changed, I changed. And decluttering got easier and easier. I’m so excited for you to experience that too. Chapter 2 MY CLUTTER HISTORYI assumed there was a solution lurking just beyond my current organizing abilities. Someday, when I reached that elusive State of Organization, my stuff would all work together perfectly, and I'd be glad to have whatever I already had. White explains that if we view our home, rooms, pantries, and shelves as “containers,” we can better understand what can and can’t fit inside them. To quote White, “Accept the limitations of the space you have.” Here’s exactly what I’d have done before I understood the Container Concept: bought more wall-hanging-organizing thingies and more scarf hangers until the floor was clear but there was no more wall space because it was covered in wall-hanging-organizing thingies and no more room for my clothes because the closet rods were full of scarf hangers. If you feel like traditional cleaning and organizing advice is written in a language you never learned, you're exactly the person for whom I wrote this book. I didn't understand, either. Items in this category are considered obvious discards at first but need to be discarded. These are things you have meant to get rid of but never got around to throwing away—something like an old itchy sweater you always hated or an antique lamp that you never liked. Step 4 – Ask The Two Questions