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So you want to keep your kitchen counter clean but you aren't ready to toss the toaster? You want to be able to find your kids' socks but aren't looking to spend your 401(k) on clear bins? You long for a little more peace but minimalism isn't sparking joy? Decluttering expert and self-proclaimed recovering slob Dana K. Whiteoffers sustainable ideas to simplify and manage your home in Organizing for the Rest of Us.
Traditional organizing advice never worked for Dana K. White. Is it possible, she wondered, to get organized without color coding my sock drawer? As Dana let go of the need for perfection, she discovered the joy of having an organized house in the midst of everyday life.
In Organizing for the Rest of Us, Dana teaches us how to make great strides with minimal effort in organizing every room of our home. Here she offers 100 organizing tips to help us understand:
Why changing how we think about clutter is the first step to getting rid of it
The basics of organization for people who don't like to organize
Why you need to get a grip on laundry and dishes before getting organized
How living with less clutter is better for the environment, our spiritual lives, and our relationships
Why real-life decluttering requires fewer hours and less emotional bandwidth than we imagined
Organizing for the Rest of Us includes colorful photos, a presentation page, and a ribbon marker, making it a thoughtful gift or self-purchase for anyone:
Doing spring cleaning
Making New Year's goals
Downsizing their own home or their parents' home
Decluttering and organizing for their own peace of mind
Fans of Dana's podcast, A Slob Comes Clean, which has been downloaded 9 million times, will treasure this book as a resource. With her lighthearted approach, Dana provides bite-size workable solutions to break through every organizational struggle you haveâ??for good!… (meer)
I’ve realized that books on decluttering and organizing are comfort reads to me. They make me grateful I live smaller than those with big families, and they help me come up with new solutions I can utilize without feeling the need to overhaul everything. I enjoy this author (her other books too) and her sharing what works for her; even if it’s not all applicable for me, it’s always beneficial if not necessarily aspirational. ( )
I enjoyed reading through this book to glean some hints, strategies, and tactics for getting control of the clutter and problem areas of my house. Although much of the book tackled areas I don’t have problems with, such as laundry and dishes, there were many hints and ideas that I can use to make my home more livable and inviting. I particularly liked her mindset for getting rid of the clutter we don’t need by gradually and continually removing excess things. This seems a much more doable and non-overwhelming strategy for me. White’s light-hearted and sensible approach appealed to me. I feel like many people could use at least some of her advice to help them gain control of their life.
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy through NetGalley. All opinions are my own. ( )
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Here's my promise to you for this book: everything you read here will be based in reality.
Citaten
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
I define clutter as anything that continually gets out of control in my home.
Instead, I know that if a space in my home continually gets out of control, there's too much stuff in that space. There is clutter, and I need to declutter that space. If it keeps getting out of control, there's still clutter. I need to keep decluttering until I'm able to keep it under control.
Now, all you have to do is keep decluttering. If something comes into your home, something else has to leave to make room. That's how you maintain a home that you can keep maintaining.
"Less" and "better" are more effective goals to work toward than "finished" and "done."
Decluttering success is having less stuff in your house than you did before.
When I focused exclusively on getting stuff out of my house instead of looking for creative ways to keep my stuff, my house started to look more organized, feel more organized, and function more organized.
Organizing and decluttering are two different things. Organizing is problem-solving, and while I'll share some ways to do that, problem-solving can be overwhelming. Organizing isn't possible when there's more stuff than could ever fit in my home.
Your house isn't a project, and treating your home like one does more harm than good. There's no beginning, middle, or end. There's definitely no end. The project mindset lends itself to putting off starting until there's "time" to really do things right. While you wait for that ideal time, the house gets worse, which means cleaning it up will require even more effort, so you put off starting even longer. It becomes a vicious cycle.
The key to getting your home under control is the little stuff.
Start decluttering in the most visible area of your home. Not the most cluttered area, the most visible area.
I had to accept the fact that if I leave piles o' procrasticlutter in a room, whatever work I do in there isn't going to have as obvious an impact. The room will still look messy.
Give yourself permission to deal with procrasticlutter when you declutter, even if doing it frustrates you. Ultimately, you'll have more to show for your effort.
Begin the decluttering process knowing when you're tempted to stick something in a temporary home "for now," you're not actually decluttering.
Letting emotions guide your decluttering is a problem, and my process solves that problem. If you start feeling paralyzed by emotions while you're decluttering, you'll know you're getting off track. If you find yourself staring into space, feeling all the feelings, thinking through all the shoulds and what-ifs, get back to the process.
Containers are limits. That's it. That's everything. In case you need more, here's more: I used to think containers were for putting things in. I knew organized people loved them, but when I bought containers and stuck my stuff in them, my house looked junky and nothing like the pictures in the magazines. Then I had a moment. I realized that the root word of container is "contain." Like, a container's purpose isn't to hold stuff, it's to contain that stuff. To serve as a limit.
This frees me because I get to blame the container. Once I realized the purpose of a container was to contain, I accepted that limits were a thing. I don't have to assess the value or future potential usefulness of every item in my house.
I no longer need to ask myself, "Do I want this?" or "Should I keep this?" I ask, "Does it fit?" Or if I want two things but only have the space for one, I ask, "Which one is container-worthy?" The Container Concept is simple, and it changes everything.
Do not pull everything out of a space. Contrary to what pretty much every other decluttering expert teaches, that is the worst strategy ever. Instead, pull out one item at a time. The steps in my process (coming up after this crucial rule) will guide you through how to do this systematically.
Remove one item at a time. Make a final decision about each item as you remove it from the space and act on that final decision. Avoid putting anything anywhere temporarily. If something is trash, put it in the trash bag. If you're not keeping it, put it in the Donate Box. If it has a home, put it there. Now. That last one is the hardest to make yourself do, but it's the key to decluttering without making a bigger mess. Take it there. Right now. Do not make piles of things to put away when you're "done" or put it in a Keep Box. Piles and Keep Boxes seem more efficient, but they are actually just procrastination stations. When you "take it there now," you can stop at any point, and your space is better off—with less stuff in it than it had when you started. Less stuff equals decluttering success.
QUESTION 1: IF I NEEDED THIS ITEM, WHERE WOULD I LOOK FOR IT FIRST? TAKE IT THERE NOW. QUESTION 2: IF I NEEDED THIS ITEM, WOULD IT OCCUR TO ME THAT I ALREADY HAD ONE?
Have you noticed that each step of this process is actually about reality acceptance?
The One-In-One-Out Rule is the key to maintaining all decluttering progress. It keeps your house under your Clutter Threshold and prevents you from sliding backward into clutter.
I have to force myself to take before photos, but every time I do, I'm so glad; and every time I don't take one, I wish I had.
Time yourself doing the thing you put off doing. Get a reality-based understanding of how long it takes to do this thing instead of letting your mind exaggerate.
Knowing for a fact how long it takes to do something removes so many excuses for not doing it.
I call it the Head-Explosion Rule. If an item makes my brain hurt, if I can't stop going back and forth between the reasons I might use it and the reasons I don't actually want it in my house, until my head feels like it's going to explode, I declutter it. No item is worth my head exploding, so it needs to go.
I'm anti-Keep Box. I'm not anti-Keepsake Box. A Keep Box is a box where you put stuff to deal with later. Don't do that. That's a procrastination station. But a Keepsake Box is a beautiful thing. It's a container whose purpose is to contain things you want to keep that serve no purpose other than to be a memory.
One-in-one-out isn't item for item; it's space for space.
Don't add storage. Find storage in your house.
If you're not giddy about arranging and rearranging, you have a lower Clutter Threshold. Store things where you can see them and get to them easily. There needs to be open space around things, which means you store less. Sometimes, just asking the question about whether this thing will be get-to-able will help you realize you don't actually care about getting to it, which will help you realize you don't actually care about keeping it.
But "miscellaneous storage" is basically an excuse to keep things that don't have an actual home. The temptation to throw something into a box marked Miscellaneous is too strong and lets me avoid forcing myself to answer the decluttering questions. You may go slower, but progress will be real and lasting if you force yourself to avoid miscellaneous storage.
Daily tasks and decluttering go hand-in-hand. Daily tasks will reveal what you can declutter, and decluttering will make it easier to keep up with your daily tasks.
Solve your most annoying problem today, then solve it again tomorrow. After seven days, you'll have figured out a routine that works in your home, for your lifestyle, that will keep that problem from being a problem.
Do your dishes. Every single day.
Let the five-minute pickups build. Every time you do a five-minute pickup, you'll put more stuff away. The first day will make an impact, and each day will increase that impact. When you get to the point that five minutes gets your house (mostly) back under control, you've hit your clutter threshold.
Routine is how I fight my TPAD, especially when it comes to cleaning. TPAD is short for a term I made up: Time Passage Awareness Disorder. It means I struggle to have any awareness of how long it has been since I last did something, especially something I don't want to do. Like cleaning.
VACUUM WINDOWSILLS DUST HIGH-UP, HIDDEN SURFACES DUST THE WALLS
But if I line the unseen-anyway space with paper towels, all I have to do is remove the paper towel and replace it, with no actual cleaning needed.
Dusting walls is irritating, because dust shouldn't be allowed to settle on walls, but it settles there anyway. You can dust walls with whatever you use to do a quick dusting of your floors. Swiffers, microfiber dry mops, or whatever you have will work just fine.
To make it an easy fix instead of a big cleaning project, keep a microfiber cloth in the bathroom, and after a steamy shower use the cloth to wipe down the already steamy mirrors. This will remove the vast majority of toothpaste splatters and random water spots.
If you are convinced a pot has to be soaked, try scrubbing it first. Use a little baking soda if you have to. Pre-scrub before the soak. If you truly can't get the not-yet-dried-up pot clean, go ahead and soak it. But nine times out of ten, you won't need to, and it will be done. Over. Never to be dealt with again (until the next time you make this soak-worthy dinner).
When something spills, if I deal with it immediately...I will get it cleaned in approximately one-tenth the time it would take to clean if I put it off for later.
CLEAN YOUR GLASS-TOP STOVE WITH A RAZOR BLADE USE AN OLD GIFT CARD TO SCRAPE DISHES
Grab whatever you have (wipes, sprays, rags, or paper towels) and wipe the bathroom counter, the sink, and the toilet (in that order).
My old and expired credit card. Or a used-up gift card. Use the edge of the card to scrape off the soap scum. A razor would work too, but a plastic gift card or credit card makes this a great job for a kid.
My number one strategy for living areas is to give priority to empty space.
Just because a space is empty doesn't mean it is available to fill with stuff.
AVOID LONG-TERM STORAGE IN THE LIVING ROOM
If you wish your house were bigger, get rid of something big. Empty floor space and walls with nothing shoved against them make your house feel better and bigger. Removing an average desk from a room opens fifteen square feet of floor space. An average living area (according to geteasymove.com) is 330 square feet. A room that size becomes 4.5 percent larger by removing a desk.
Turn off the fan. (I feel like that's obvious, but just in case...) While on a sturdy ladder or stepstool (you don't want to grab the ceiling fan for balance), carefully slide a pillowcase over one fan blade at a time, not putting any weight or pressure on the blade itself to avoid messing up the fan's balance. Gently slide the pillowcase off the blade using the pillowcase to grab the majority of the dust buildup. If any dust is left, you can use a soft duster to remove it. ... Flip the pillowcase inside out and shake it into the trash can or outside, and throw the pillowcase into the laundry hamper.
my definition of clutter: anything that consistently gets out of control in my home.
Call the place where you donate clothes and ask if they want imperfect clothing.
Don't freak out. Start by giving yourself permission to look through the photos and get rid of the trash—the doubles, or pictures of shoes, or school photos of people you never met. Once you've done that, fill the container you have for photos with your favorites first.
Instead of scanning photos, I find it much simpler and quicker to take pictures of the photos with my digital camera or my phone. It works best to put the old photo on a wall with tape or Sticky Tack to take the pictures. If you lay them down and stand over them, it is more difficult to get a photo (of the photo) without a shadow falling on it.
As I decluttered, I realized how much of my home I hadn't been able to truly live in before. I have added a large room's worth of square footage to our home by decluttering. Our livable space is significantly larger than it was before. It's the same home but with more space. I never would have imagined that was possible until I experienced it.
Most of all, I had no idea the impact the state of my home had on my brain's ability to relax. When I looked at my house as a whole, saw it was messy, and thought the only way to solve the problem was to change everything about it and everything about me, I felt constant nagging feelings. I felt I shouldn't be relaxing because of all the things I thought I should be doing. Knowing what to do and doing those things (even most of the time) has changed that. I know to do the dishes. When I'm overwhelmed and when I'm on fire, that's where I start. I know to do a five-minute pickup when the house is starting to feel out of control. I know that when a five-minute pickup doesn't cut it, I need to declutter. Knowing what to do matters almost as much as doing it. (Almost.) Knowing what to do makes me like my home, and liking my home helps me enjoy my life.
Laatste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
I hope you accept my gift of sharing what I learned as I stumbled through, so you can get there faster, and hopefully with less angst. Now, go do the dishes.
So you want to keep your kitchen counter clean but you aren't ready to toss the toaster? You want to be able to find your kids' socks but aren't looking to spend your 401(k) on clear bins? You long for a little more peace but minimalism isn't sparking joy? Decluttering expert and self-proclaimed recovering slob Dana K. Whiteoffers sustainable ideas to simplify and manage your home in Organizing for the Rest of Us.
Traditional organizing advice never worked for Dana K. White. Is it possible, she wondered, to get organized without color coding my sock drawer? As Dana let go of the need for perfection, she discovered the joy of having an organized house in the midst of everyday life.
In Organizing for the Rest of Us, Dana teaches us how to make great strides with minimal effort in organizing every room of our home. Here she offers 100 organizing tips to help us understand:
Why changing how we think about clutter is the first step to getting rid of it The basics of organization for people who don't like to organize Why you need to get a grip on laundry and dishes before getting organized How living with less clutter is better for the environment, our spiritual lives, and our relationships Why real-life decluttering requires fewer hours and less emotional bandwidth than we imagined
Organizing for the Rest of Us includes colorful photos, a presentation page, and a ribbon marker, making it a thoughtful gift or self-purchase for anyone:
Doing spring cleaning Making New Year's goals Downsizing their own home or their parents' home Decluttering and organizing for their own peace of mind
Fans of Dana's podcast, A Slob Comes Clean, which has been downloaded 9 million times, will treasure this book as a resource. With her lighthearted approach, Dana provides bite-size workable solutions to break through every organizational struggle you haveâ??for good!
)
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