Decluttering

On your mark, get set, declutter! You can speed your way through this assignment in an hour or less today. (You might even want to try using the timer method again, just for fun, if you are dorky like me.) It shouldn’t take too long and once you cross this self-contained, one-shot task off your list, you’ll have a more pleasant, easy, speedy start to each and every day for months to come. Time invested today: minimal. Upcoming time (and aggravation) saved: a bunch!

We all know someone whose home is always mysteriously, maddeningly clutter-free. How do they do it? Maybe they just don’t have any stuff. Maybe they incinerate everything right before anyone comes over. Or maybe they have a few secret weapons. Here are three of your most important allies in the fight against clutter. If you are trying to get rid of clutter, drawers are almost magical.

After a while, you get so accustomed to seeing the things in your home that you tend to gloss over cluttered spaces because they seem normal. So we’re getting really, really specific. Are you guilty of storing any of these things that you don’t want or need? The groceries are long gone; their day is done. Is your linen closet keeping up with your furniture? Why are you still storing that frizz-inducing shampoo?

Many of us strive for a more simplified life, in which what surrounds us are things we either truly love or truly need, preferably both. To arrive at — and to maintain — such a lifestyle, we have to get rid of things, whether it’s in one fell swoop or in small doses. While it feels like a big mountain to climb, getting rid of things ultimately feels sooo good. Here’s why. Physical space and mental space go hand-in-hand.

I live in Chicago so layers are a lovely fact of life here. Sweaters are both a fashion opportunity and a warmth necessity and while there’s no reason to fight it, that doesn’t mean all knitwear is good knitwear. It can get pilly, shrunken, holey and plain old worn out. Today, we’re going to start the Closet Cure off in a relatively small and manageable way and sort through just your sweaters. Let’s go.

Storage space in the bathroom is always at a premium, and if you’re like most people, your bathroom is probably full of things you don’t really use. The good news is that cleaning all that stuff out doesn’t have to be time-consuming or involve a lot of agonizing decisions. Just take ten minutes and follow this handy guide. Here are a few things that have no place in your bathroom: 1. Towels that have seen better days.

One of the our biggest emotional blocks against reducing clutter is nostalgia! We want to keep remembering the great things that happened to us while wearing that sweater or the time in our lives when we loved those plates, so we hang on to stuff that we no longer need. But guess what? You don’t need the actual items to keep those great memories at the front of your mind. Try these ideas.

I had the most transforming (literally) moment not too long ago when I took a bench out of my bedroom. While I had styled it lovingly with a comforting and cozy vignette and it technically fit in the spot it was in, it made my room feel cramped. Or at least, I didn’t realize it felt cramped until I moved it to another room in my home and breathed in the fresh air of a roomier, more wonderful bedroom!

Decluttering maven Marie Kondo has inspired us all to live, not only with less, but with only the things that spark joy. Her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing is full of inspiration and instructions about how to make your home the streamlined, joy machine it can be and, notably, warns against one specific thing (that we do all the time!). We wouldn’t have thought of this one but it’s so true.

Shopping for just the right thing for your home can be a bit of a rush. You’ve searched for so long, and now, at long last, you’ve found it. Your skin is tingly. You hear the faint sound of angel choirs. But wait! Before you buy anything (be it online, at the flea market, at a garage sale, or at a just plain old store), ask yourself these five questions. Will it fit? In shopping, as in relationships, we sometimes like to think that love is all you need.

For better or worse, one thing the digital revolution has done is enable us to have fewer things. Of course, our phones alone have eclipsed the need for many other electronic tools (cameras, CD players, etc.). It’s amazing! But what about the things in our world that persist in physical form, things that don’t give us joy in our space and can easily a growing mass of clutter if we’re not meticulously organized?

Chances are, you’ve heard of Marie Kondo by now. Her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, seems to be everywhere these days. If you haven’t heard of Kondo’s philosophy, in a nutshell, it promotes cleansing your life of all the things that don’t give you joy. In the spirit of spring cleaning, my friends and I recently had a Marie Kondo party to collectively motivate ourselves to clean out, tidy up, and share some joy.

Making a little extra space in your closet doesn't have to involve a lot of hand-wringing and soul-searching.

Wow, we’re nearly 75% of the way through the Cure (yay, you!). I’m guessing that it feels good to have a cleaner, more organized home and I know you want to is keep it that way with as little fuss as possible. Well, today’s assignment is a small thing that helps to set you up for long term success; a little time spent this evening will make the rest of your year easier. Sound good? Here’s how to do it….

It’s one thing to get rid of items that have a lot of sentimental value. It’s easier to ditch stuff that you don’t care about, have duplicates of, or just don’t really need. If you are starting a long-overdue purging process, start with this list. Trust me: you won’t miss a thing once they are gone. Coffee Mugs: Many people mindlessly collect mugs, much like business cards or matchbooks.

The Style Cure is all about making one room in your home more beautiful, organized and healthy. The outbox concept is a bit of a magic bullet – in one fell swoop, it will help with all three missions. Even though it’s a powerful tool, it will just take you a few minutes to get one in place, so let’s do it today… We’ll be prompting you to use the outbox throughout the Cure to help you get things decluttered and organized.

Organizing words of wisdom from a pro.

I read a remarkable statistic the other day: When Benjamin Franklin died, he had over 70,000 pages of documents in his home. Today, you and I can easily carry around that much data on our smartphones. Admittedly, our data probably isn’t anywhere near as brilliant, but the ease of storing this information means we accumulate far more digital clutter than we need. If you’ve got five minutes and would like to reduce the amount of digital clutter in your life, try these quick tricks: 1.

As many of us are probably feeling at the close of the January cure, there’s something so refreshing about an empty, cleaned out space. Keeping clutter from multiplying and knowing what to do when it starts to grow are essential for maintaining a peaceful living space. Here are five ways to get and keep that clutter out: 1) Work clockwise. When faced with a space you want to declutter, staying focused is key.

Day 16: Thursday, January 23 Assignment: Declutter your book, magazine, movie & music collections Take a deep breath. If you are like me, this assignment is a biggie. I fully admit that this is something that I’m terrible about: hanging on to books and magazines forever.

Day 15: Wednesday, January 22 Assignment: Clean and declutter your bathroom & medicine cabinets Get this done today and I guarantee you’ll be a happier camper tomorrow morning. Why spend precious moments each morning searching through an overcrowded jumble in the bathroom when they could be used to be blissfully snoozing…or sipping coffee…or how about about catching up with the posts on your favorite blog?

Day 14: Tuesday, January 21 Assignment: Clean up the cord clutter Today we have one of those surprisingly “worth it” Cure assignments that is straightforward and simple, yet makes an unexpectedly substantial difference in how your home looks and feels. Let’s face it, no matter how well organized an area is otherwise, if there is a visible mess of wires and cords, things look unfinished and visually chaotic.

There’s something about the new year that puts me into declutter mode. So, it’s not surprising that Thursday morning, the New Year’s Eve hangover now thankfully a memory, there I was, donation box in hand, tossing, tossing, tossing, starting with my favorite gotta-goes, the multiple multiples.