Decluttering Quickly

Do you seem to be surrounded by clutter? Instead of looking at the whole cluttered mess, break up the job into sections. Determine the area that is your biggest frustration. It may be an unorganized desk or that dining room table that has become nothing but a catchall. Whatever the point of frustration is, that is the place you want to start with.

To avoid being distracted, gather all the tools that will be needed to do the job right before you start to declutter. Some of the tools I have found to be helpful are a garbage bag, two boxes labeled "donate" and "put away," a dust cloth, and a timer.

The timer is used to set the time for how long you will be decluttering for the day. Set the timer somewhere between 15 to 30 minutes. The timer will help keep you focused as you know that you only have a limited time to accomplish what needs to be done. Turn the TV off as well as the phone. This is your time to focus on eliminating the clutter.

Looking around the area you want to work on, quickly pick up any trash and throw it away. This process doesn't take much time. Just quickly pick up the garbage and put it into the garbage bag.

Still working with the garbage bag, throw away all of the items that you come across that you no longer want. If an item is broken, torn, stained, or missing parts, throw it away. Do not put something away that is in need of repair. If you were going to repair it, it would have been fixed already. Throw it away.

If an item is out of place or in the wrong room, put it in the box labeled "put away." This step of decluttering should go quickly without much thought put into it. The same holds true with the "donate" box. Do not spend much time with these two boxes. Remember that the idea is to go through the items quickly.

Put the items in the box labeled "put away" where they belong. Take the garbage bag out to the trash. This is important; if you don't do these two things you are setting yourself up to fail tomorrow.

About this time the timer goes off and time's up; you're finished for the day and you can look forward to doing more tomorrow. Look around and you will see all that was accomplished in that short of time. Be protective of this newly organized area. This area is now a clutter-free zone.