Clearing Decluttering Clutter: Find an Approach that Works for You - The Clutter Fairy Weekly #103

Spot on as always! Everyone has a different home, density & energy level. I had to go from fast & furious in my 20-40s and now I have "graduated" to slow and steady wins the race.

The Minimalists are the gentlemen who created the packing party. I believe the intention behind the method is to actively confront one’s relationship with our stuff. Thank you for your fine work at The Clutter Fairy.

Nothing works for everyone! Kondo's books taught me useful methods. It clicked in my brain. It worked!

YouTuber “Diane in Denmark” has a really positive, upbeat attitude with her channel that encourages regular decluttering and cleaning methods based on the FlyLady system. She also is interesting to watch as she includes some of her other activities in Copenhagen. Great person, great channel. Very motivating channel.

Gayle, you are the absolute best in your field. You are the only organizer/declutter professional on the internet who has a high level of "on the front lines, real life" EXPERIENCED expertise. The worst people to follow are the "young and dumb" who have zero practical, professional experience in this area, but only want to be popular in the media. Thank you, Gayle for being the only intelligent, experienced expert. You are stand out alone in your field, and I would give you an A+ grade.. And the others do not even come close, and I would give them all a D- or an F grade.

Some questions to ask myself that I heard are: 'What purpose does this serve?' 'Do I have something else that does the same thing?' 'Would I buy it today?' 'Am I enjoying/honoring this by keeping it hidden/forgotten in a box somewhere?' 'Does it have a home in my house?' I also found the method by Dana K White very helpful. Since she has 3 kids, her methods work for people with children and have busy lives.

Right now I have identified every piece of furniture and every piece of clothing that will be out of my life in three years when I retire and downsize I wish I was doing it sooner than later but I do feel more confident knowing what will stay and what will go.
I do not actually have an issue with clutter or organization I constantly keep boxes at the ready that when filled go directly to the donation centers as I do other errands.

Swedish death cleaning worked in the basement to deal with the excess holiday stuff I no longer put out, and things I had saved for the kids. I took photos and sent them to my children. They claimed what they wanted, and I felt guilt free about donating the rest. Seven trips to goodwill with full loads followed. It made an incredible impact on my storage space. I think different methods work for different parts of the house. I did a modified Marie Kondo method on my clothes. Folding clothes vertically made a real difference.

What motivates me is the vision of creating a beautiful yet comfortable home. I love organized spaces and neatly stocked cabinets. What gets in my way is having a lot of stop-in company, having a dog who is messy, and doing too many DIY projects that take up my time. Another zapper of my focus is arthritis and significant back and knee pain. So the mind is willing but my spirit doesn't always cooperate. A great motivator also is listening to people like you who believe we all can do things. That really does help.

It's a bit disappointing that there is no RIGHT WAY. Instead there are a lot of ways available- "Listen to what this person has to say, see if some of it rings true and you can make use of. For the parts that sound completely unusable- evaluate whether you are trying to avoid something you don't want to do - or does it just not apply to you? If it doesn't apply see if there is a similar concept that would actually be useful but would need to be implemented in another way? If people are looking for a reason they don't need to declutter or cannot possibly do it because of X- they weren't going to do it anyway.
Really love Gayle and Ed's methods of explaining things. Keep 'em coming.

I just packed up possessions from my 3 storage containers flooded by Cyclone Gabrielle in NZ. I slept in one that got 2 or 3 inches of water and silt. Another container had stored stuff plus a spare bed. It got up to 6 inches, so not the bed but lots of boxes. The third one was from my recent move to Wairoa, all my furniture, my fridge, washing machine, dresser, cupboards, bed frame, tables, chairs etc. Mixed in with all these possessions were books, material, crafting resources. Trouble is I was so keen to get everything out and back under cover (we've had our second wet summer) that I didn't declutter, other than books that needed too much work, appliances, cords that didn't work and things that were filthy. I moved into a medium size 6 berth RV. When I move back into my bedroom container, I'll have to sort thru everything again. I'm actually almost looking forward to the sorting, because, touch wood, I can see all my treasures, and I won't have to do it ever again. My daughter is encouraging me to get rid of things. She isn't looking forward😂 to having to do it when I die, which, given that I'm 73, is more likely every year😊

My strategy for purging and organizing books: 1. Take one stack or shelf at a time and weed out every book that is either in poor condition or that I definitely don't want anymore. Dust off the keepers and shelves as I go and restack them neatly where they were to begin with. 2. After finishing that initial step with all the books in the house, go back and sort them by subject into broad categories. Work on one subject at a time by going through all of my neat, clean stacks and pulling out all the books of only one subject. 3. Group them together and take a hard look at what I have in that subject category. Remove every book that is obviously redundant or of lower value comparatively. For example if I have 6 books on French cuisine I pick out the 1-2 best of the lot and eliminate the rest. 4. After weeding out as much as possible, evaluate the volume of space needed for the current subject group and decide which shelf would be a good fit. Remove all other books from the designated shelf that are not of the same category (i.e everything left on the shelf) and set those aside for now. 5. Neatly place the sorted group on its designated shelf in logical sub-categories (if necessary) which may include sizes and alphabetized authors or titles, whatever is most practical and convenient for each particular category. Cookbooks, for example, may be further sorted into types of cuisine (e.g. American, Italian) or courses (e.g. desserts, breads, etc.). Or philosophy might be sub-categorized by schools of thought. History by eras or countries. Etc. (Of course the smaller the volume of each category the less need for sub-categories.)

For the weekly tittle, I want to say that I have tried several different decluttering methods. I agree with your listener, that some methods work better for certain spaces. For example, in order to reach the back of a cabinet, I have to pull out the things in front, so I do a sort of clean sweep of the entire cabinet a la Peter Marshall. Sometimes, I have flitted about like a butterfly, picking up one thing here and another thing there. No one surface gets remarkably cleaner that way, but if I do that three or four times, all of the surfaces look better. And, it can be fun. When I get ready to declutter, I try to evaluate the space and also check where my energy flow is. I have found that if I pay attention to how my energy is flowing and work with that, I am often very productive in that decluttering session.

Happy Birthday Ed!!!

The pack up everything approach could work in limited ways too. It's similar to the "turn your hangers the wrong way" hack. You hang up all your clothes with the hanger backwards, then as you wear and wash items, you hang them back up the right way. After a few months, you see which items you haven't worn and start to pare down your clothes.
I've been paring down clothes this way for years and every time I go to purge, I'm able to get rid of more and more items. I have over 100 empty hangers in my closet rn, and there was a time when I would find myself running low on hangers.

Great guidance, insights and inspiration as always ❤️ Gayle your lipstick is gorgeous! Wishing Ed continued blessings throughout his birthday season 🎂

I've read Marie Kondo, Becker, & Walsh. Although, I've learned from them, their methods don't work for my situation/mental state. I do, however, "click" with Dana K White's method. She's my people! LOL! (I was typing this before I heard her mentioned in the video. So, yes, please check her out & discuss her in the future.) 😘

Thanks for doing the comparison of methods! I've taken different approaches for different categories and for different rooms. Your numerous videos give so many ways to approach clutter it's been easy to find solutions! Thank you, Clutter Fairy!

Some of these processes require that your don't make purchases faster than you clear items out.

Happy Birthday, Ed!!