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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Clutter isn’t always a result of owning too many things or being too busy, it is often caused by bad processes. For example, is your purse or wallet overflowing with receipts? Receipt clutter is almost always caused by either not having a process for handling receipts or having a process you don’t use because the method is inconvenient, poorly designed, or not the best process for your needs. Your purse or wallet is stuffed to the brim with tiny strips of paper because you don’t have an effective process in place to deal with receipts.

Receipt clutter isn’t the only problem caused by bad processes — you might have an issue with an overflowing e-mail inbox or suitcases lingering full of dirty clothes for a week after a vacation or shoes constantly in the middle of your living room floor. Do any of these issues strike a chord with you? If not these, maybe you can identify some area of your life where clutter appears because of a bad process?

Take these steps to identify bad processes and replace them with effective processes that work for you:

1. Identify the clutter. This seems obvious, but can be more challenging to do than you might assume. After looking at clutter for awhile, clutter has a way of becoming invisible. So, take a picture or ask a friend to come over to help you really see the clutter.
2. Figure out where you want the object to live in your home or office. Do you want dirty clothes to live in the clothes hamper? Do you want shoes to live in the front closet? Do you want receipts to live in the trash or filing cabinet?
3. Determine a way for the object to consistently reach that storage space. Now is not the time to think you have super powers — be realistic with yourself about your energy levels and commitment to maintaining the process. Mentally map out a plan for how you will process the object so it stops cluttering up your space.
4. Acquire any materials you might need for the process. In my case, I have to put a plastic zip top bag in my purse to hold all of my receipts for a month. Additionally, I have to carry a purse that is large enough to hold the zip top bag full of receipts.
5. Use your newly created process.
6. Evaluate your process. After a few weeks of learning and adapting to your system, take the time to review its effectiveness. If you realize your system was too complicated and difficult to maintain, determine where in the process your system is breaking down and change that attribute. Maybe the object needs to be stored in a more convenient location, maybe the steps involved are too cumbersome, or maybe you don’t have the right tools for the job?

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Physical clutter is easy to identify in our lives because you can touch it, take a picture of it, and point to it during an argument with your roommate/co-worker/child/spouse.

“That thing, right there, should not be there!”

Other forms of clutter are more nebulous. If you are worried all the time, you can’t pack that anxiety up and sell it on Craigslist. If your schedule is overbooked, it’s difficult to know which of dozens of activities is the one too many.

To help identify the non-physical clutter in my life, I give myself a timeout. I’ll sit in a comfortable chair, holding a pencil and notebook, and close my eyes. I try to clear my head of all thoughts. Whatever thoughts slip in, I quickly open my eyes and write them down on the notebook paper. Then, I close my eyes again and try to clear my mind of all thoughts. After about 30 minutes, I’m usually able to settle down and enjoy a few moments of real silence.

When I get up from my timeout, I’ll look at the list and try to address everything on it as quickly as possible. Almost everything I write on the notebook paper is related to clutter in some way — I’ll pick up the phone and call a friend I’ve been worried about to see how she’s doing and if she needs anything, I’ll schedule 15 minutes to research information regarding a decision I need to make, or I’ll make a long-overdue appointment with my eye doctor. Even if I can’t solve the problem completely, doing at least something helps to relieve or reduce the clutter burden I’ve been carrying.

I’ve discovered that a monthly timeout helps me to keep the non-physical clutter from growing out of control in my life. If you haven’t tried it before, give the timeout a try and see what happens. Worst case scenario, you’ll fall asleep and conclude you are free of non-physical clutter.

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

Scott Adams, the artist behind the Dilbert cartoon, wrote on his blog back in August about his desire to live in a more simple world — a world without so many options that he can stop wasting time and energy trying to make a decision. He rants about too many choices when booking travel reservations, too many features on his digital watch, and movie theaters with special seats and meals. From his post “The Less Feature,” discussing his travel preparations:

Over the next several hours [trying to find an airline ticket on Orbitz] I tried sorting by flight time, shortest route, and price. Then I tried JetBlue’s site because it’s not included in Orbitz. Then I tried United Airlines’ site because I didn’t know if they would have extra options, and I needed to check my miles. The flight I picked had all sorts of seating options and levels of travel that I needed to research. Then I needed to arrange the rental car, the hotel, and the airport pickup. Then I took all of the information and reformatted it in a way I could read. At some point in the process I crossed a line: The time to plan and book the trip took longer than it will take to fly across the entire country.

Adams continues on to talk about Apple, and how he believes they’re one company that is more in-line with his “Less Feature” desire:

Apple often gets the less features thing right. The iPad didn’t add a fast boot-up speed, it subtracted a hard disk. It didn’t add a touch screen, it subtracted a keyboard. You want to print? Forget it. The iPad is awesome precisely because it has fewer options. If I want more complexity I can purchase apps.

With an endless supply of applications you can download from their app store and the numerous models of computers, I’m not so certain Apple has the “Less Feature” perfected. However, I agree that they’re better at uncluttering their product lines than many other companies.

Where do you stand? Do you believe that too many options clutters up your daily experience? Would you prefer fewer options, or do more options mean you are able to find exactly what you need for your clutter-free life?

Thanks to MinimalMac for leading us to this interesting Scott Adams blog post.

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

My fourth and final set of 2010 resolutions started the first of October, but have been delayed a bit as I’ve been trying to wrap up my third quarter “Finish It!” goals. My son’s baby book is almost finished, and then I’ll have worked through a page and a half of previously unfinished tasks.

In the third quarter, I’ve had my house’s electrical box rewired, the clothes dryer fixed, the garbage disposal repaired, I sold my spinning wheel and roving, went through a home re-uncluttering effort, and finished my next book proposal (though I haven’t had the courage to send it on to my agent yet). I also passed along all of my son’s baby clothes to my nephew and dozens of other small tasks that had been hanging out on my to-do list for far too long (some unfinished items had been there for a few years). For those who are new to Unclutterer, so far this year I’ve also worked on increasing my energy levels during the first quarter of 2010 and embarking on new adventures during the second quarter.

My fourth quarter resolutions for 2010 are all about nurturing the things that matter to me most.

Like most of you, my friends and family are at the top of my list of what is most important in life. I’ve cleared the clutter so I can spend more time with those I love and laugh with them and let them know how much I appreciate them — but I still don’t feel like I’m doing enough. Actually, I know I’m not doing enough.

I have nine things on my list of what truly matters to me in this world. Over the next two and a half months, I’m going to focus all of my energy on nurturing these nine things. I have very specific goals related to my nurturing theme, but since most of them are extremely specific (naming friends and family members outright), I’ll post just a few here to give you a general idea of my actions:

• Make a care package for my mother-in-law for her to enjoy after her surgery in November. (Nurturing family.)
• Acquire a treadmill so I can continue to run four times a week even when the weather is nasty cold. (Nurturing my health.)
• Take a music class with my son. (Nurturing my son.)

After clearing the clutter, have you invested in the things that matter most to you? Or, are you still letting not-so-important matters clutter up your time? During the fourth quarter, consider creating resolutions that are focused on nurturing the things that really matter and enjoying the benefits of an uncluttered life.

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.