Simple Life Corp
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Clutter Control Tips and Decluttering Ideas
Click the links below to read the full article:
How Does It Feel? If it's not good, then it may be time to get rid of it ....
Declutter Idea - Time Your Tasks
Is That Donation of Goods Tax Deductible?
Clutter Control - Where to give your items
Will a Housekeeper Simplify Your Life?
Use Your Zorro Circle to Clear Clutter
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Clutter Solutions - Techniques and Tips
Here is another Simple Life idea to help clear your clutter. Use these tips and ideas to find new approaches to declutter your home and to form new habits to stay clutter free.
Clear More Clutter: Empty the Box
I have to admit that this clutter clearing tip seems almost magical to me. At least that is how it works for me and I want to share it with you.
One basic technique for getting the clutter cleared from your home is to keep a box that is designated for giving away - to charity, such as Goodwill or Salvation Army, or for giving to family or friends that you know will appreciate and use the items. Having this box in an easily accessible area makes it simply routine to toss an item in the box at the moment you realize that it no longer fits, or that you no longer use it or want it.
I have been working through the clutter in my home for some time now. The "Goodwill Box" has been an essential and powerful part of my clutter clearing. As soon as I try something on that doesn't fit or look good, I take it to the box. I'm fully in the resolve and knowledge that this piece of clothing is not right for me or my closet. While that feeling is strong and the reasons very clear, in the box it goes. It does not go back in my closet for me to later ponder about whether it really looks that bad on me or for me to get sentimental about how much I paid for it or what a really well made piece of clothing it is, or even that someday I'll get around to altering it to fit.
This works so well with most unused items. There is a moment of clarity that hits when I am trying to use something or to move things around to look for something else, when I realize that this particular item is really just in the way and I haven't used it since I can remember (or I do remember using it and was not pleased with the results.) While this feeling is strong and clear, I have an immediate and routine solution: put it in the Goodwill box.
One nice thing about the box that makes it so easy to put things in it is that I only empty it a couple of times a month. When it gets full, I write up a list of the items and their thrift shop value (for tax deduction purposes) and then put the items in bags for taking to the Goodwill drop off box. This delay is especially nice because when I put something in, I already know that I can retrieve it in the next few days if I realize that I made a mistake in putting it in the box. What I've found, though, is that once I put something in the box and then look at it later, I'm virtually always very happy that it is going away.
In the last few months, though, as I watch this pattern of filling the box and clearing things out, I noticed something important and, ... well, really cool. Magical. It has to do with the old saying "Nature abhors a vacuum." I've noticed that when the box is newly empty, I suddenly find many new things to get rid of. The empty box seems to be a magnet for clutter. Yet once the box gets nearly full, the rate of finding items for the box gets much slower, to the point that the overflowing box might sit for the last week without anything new being added.
Even when I became aware of this, I still found that fewer "Goodwill box" things appeared to me when the box was full, but once I emptied it, I found all kinds of things that needed to go in the box - it really seems like magic.
So now I try to empty and donate the contents of the box before it gets completely full. And sure enough, it fills up just as quickly.
Give it a try. Get a box, designate it for your "giving away" clutter and empty it as soon as it starts getting full. See for yourself it is does not become your own clutter magnet.
Article by Patti Tokar Canton ©2011
All Rights Reserved. Do not duplicate without permission.
This is one of SimpleLifeCorp's clutter clearing ideas. You may be interested in some of the others:
How to declutter using your feelings as a guide
Is That Donation of Goods Tax Deductible?
Clutter Clearing - Use It or Lose It
Will a Housekeeper Simplify Your Life?
Time Your Tasks for Clutter Control
Use Your Zorro Circle to Clear Your Clutter
Mimi Tanner has an excellent program to declutter your home fast. She sends out a free, informative newsletter on controlling clutter.
Mimi Tanner's
DeClutter Fast Program:
How to Get Your Home
in Order Almost Immediately
DeClutter Fast!
Check out our list of suggestions for places to give your items at Simple Life's Clutter Control Center . Thanks for reading. I hope that this is a great help to you.