It’s never too early, or late, to spring-clean.
5 ways to clear clutter and stop it building up again
1. Five Ways to Start
· Start where it’s easy, because it is the easiest place to start.
· Start in the corners: “Sweep out the corners, the middle will sweep itself.” or
· Start in the middle, because the Tao Te Ching tells us: ~ We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the hole in the centre that lets the wagon move ~
· Start where you are, because the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step (i.e. the difference between 0 and 1 is infinite).
· Start now, because there is no time like the present.
2. Five Rules of Thumb
- 20 per cent effort will get 80 per cent results: put performance before perfection
- Put like with like: how many tin-openers do you need?
- A place for everything and everything in its place
- Less is more.
- Clutter is the product of a process called cluttering: your space is how you make it; if you want to stay free of new clutter, you need to change the behaviour that made the old clutter in the first place.
3. Five things you can live without
- Broken stuff: appliances, tools, toys, games/jigsaws with bits missing
- Old worn-out stuff: clothes, shoes, bags, paint, varnish, glue, batteries
- Exhausted stuff: dried up make-up; almost empty bottles and jars of cosmetics
- Magazines and newspapers you’ve read
- Junk mail, take-away menus, out-of-date coupons
4. Five quick fixes
- Find 5 minutes for your worst area: you can make a difference.
- Find five things: pick a target number of objects; gather into a bag, and go.
- Fill a sack: gather rubbish and take it straight to the bin.
- Find somewhere that doesn’t matter: gain space without the emotional tug.
- Find what’s easy: tackle clutter “hot-spots” or “dead-spots” where results are easy.
5. Five Point Plan
- Write down why you want to declutter.
- Plan when you will start and schedule time.
- Decide where you will start.
- Do a bit of local research: (friends), charity shops, local authority (who?)
- Do two of the quick fixes … today (what?)
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