Hasta La Ideas

Reader Alex submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

How long do you think it really takes to become uncluttered and maintain an uncluttered life? I grew up in a cluttered home. I could not fit all my clothing in my dresser as a child because it was filled with my grandfather’s underwear. (He died when I was five and my parents never cleaned it.) I am working at becoming more organized but my husband and I work full time and have three kids and I am wondering how long it will realistically take.

Thankfully, uncluttering is not a race. There also aren’t people who will give you grades on your uncluttering efforts, and there are no such thing as uncluttering police. As long as your living situation is not so cluttered as to be a danger to yourself or others, you get to determine how uncluttered your life will be and how long it will take you to achieve that state.

Realistically, it doesn’t typically take very long to get rid of physical clutter. You look at an object and decide if you want to keep it or get rid of it, and then you trash, recycle, donate, and/or sell the clutter. It took me just six days to get rid of the physical clutter from my life, and I had a ridiculous amount of it.

Remember that it’s not uncluttering that takes a large amount of time — it’s organizing the things you choose to keep and learning to maintain an uncluttered and organized life that are the time-intensive endeavors. I’m considered by some people to be an “expert” on this subject, and I’m still learning how to keep my life and possessions orderly. Having an uncluttered and organized life isn’t the goal, rather, living simply is a path to achieving the life you desire.

My suggestion is to set a timer and work with your family for 30 minutes a day on uncluttering and organizing. Eventually, it will all get done. Take as long as you need, and don’t feel pressure to rush through the process — unless you want to commit to more than 30 minutes a day — it’s your choice. Decide what an uncluttered and organized life looks like to you, and then work to make it happen.

For a family of five, if all kids are in school, my guess is that it will take you three months of everyone in the family uncluttering and organizing for 30 minutes a day to achieve a less-cluttered, organized space. You’ll have a few set backs, a few power weekends where you get more done than you ever imagined, but most days you’ll just work through the 30 minutes without giving it much thought.

When it’s time to maintain your newly uncluttered and organized life, come back to Unclutterer and search through our archives. We’ve written on just about every type of maintenance strategy out there. Good luck to you and your family — I know you’ll do a terrific job. Keep us posted.

Thank you, Alex, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column.

Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.

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