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Ask Unclutterer: Designing a new space that prevents clutter and reduces cleaning time

Reader Howard submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

Do you have any tips for remodeling or building a house that would help prevent clutter or reduce cleaning maintenance in the design of the space?

This is a really fun question, Howard, and I’m so glad you asked it. You have a terrific opportunity in front of you to build a space that can help you achieve and maintain an uncluttered lifestyle.

First things first, thoroughly unclutter your existing possessions so your new space is free of things you don’t want in it. Check out “Start a full-room organizing project with a blank canvas” for tips on uncluttering in this style, but apply it to your entire home.

Now that the obvious is out of the way, I highly recommend designing the space with ample storage that can easily be reconfigured. Use elfa shelving (or the competing product from Rubbermaid) in closets and pantries so shelf heights can be adjusted or clothing rods installed or drawers can be added as necessary. Your needs for storage change over time, and your storage solutions should be able to adapt. If they can’t adapt, at some point they will cease to be helpful.

Also, when it comes to storage, think outside the closet. Have drawers set into the risers of your stairs, recess shelving between the studs of your walls, have window seats double as storage cubes, furnish with ottomans that have interior storage, or whatever fits your design style. The idea here is be creative with the elements you use in the space to improve storage instead of hinder it.

Beyond having ample, reconfigurable and creative storage, there are numerous cosmetic things you can do to help with cleaning and preventing clutter. None of these is a perfect solution, but they’re certainly things I do in my homes when I’m not renting:

Paint the walls with washable flat latex interior paint that contains ceramic microspheres. (You can find these in the washable paint section at most home improvement stores. Check the ingredients on the paint cans. The ceramic microspheres are usually in the higher-end washable paints.) Even if you don’t have pets or young children, it’s still very easy to get marks on your walls. With washable paint that has ceramic microspheres mixed into it, these stray marks come off like you’re washing tile instead of your painted walls.

Lay hardwood floors and use throw rugs instead of wall-to-wall carpeting, especially if you have pets. Cleaning and maintaining hardwood floors is exponentially easier, and it’s much less expensive to replace a throw rug than an entire room of carpeting.

If money is no object, install smart glass windows. You’ll never have to clean blinds again. (But, I guess if you can afford smart glass windows, you could probably also afford a cleaning crew to wash you blinds …)

Finally, I’ve never had one, but I’ve always thought a central home vacuum system would speed up cleaning time. Some of the systems have horizontal intakes (I think they’re technically called “sweep inlets”) so in addition to using the vacuum hose, you can also sweep directly into the suction area and not have to use a dustpan.

Thank you, Howard, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column. And, like I mentioned earlier, be sure to check the comments for suggestions from our readers on designing spaces to prevent clutter and reduce cleaning time.

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.

Posted by Erin on May 18, 2012 | 38 Comments | Tweet This

Do your spaces reflect what matters most to you?

My friend Brittany (whom I’ve mentioned so many times on this site that I’m starting to think I need to add her to our About page) sent me a link to the following video, which I’ve found to be incredibly inspiring. As an unclutterer, there are numerous things that caught my attention with this piece and I want you to see it, too. This is a video that fashion icon Anna Dello Russo recently made for the clothing store H&M:

Dello Russo’s home is a perfect example of what I refer to when I say, “it’s important to clear the clutter so you can focus on what is important to you.” What is important to Anna Dello Russo? Fashion and, specifically accessories. Her place has a lot of accessories — more than I’ve ever seen in an individual collection — yet her home is completely uncluttered, simple, elegant. She doesn’t have anything in her home that detracts from her passion for accessories. Even the books on her bookshelf exist to provide her inspiration for new accessories and outfits. And, she is truly organized. Everything has a place, and everything is in its place.

Did you notice the descriptions she has written on her shoe boxes? Did you see how she keeps the packaging for her tights and carefully returns each pair to that packaging when she’s finished wearing them? Did you see how few clothes she actually owns? My guess is that she is a loyal follower of the one-in-one-out rule for her garments. Her purses and clutches are lined up in beautiful rows, and it’s obvious she knows exactly where each piece of jewelry is located in her home.

My favorite thing about this space is how it represents her love for accessories and that love is directly reflected in the decor of each room. She has some artwork on the walls, but mostly she lets the bracelets and hats and other items be the artwork. This is a woman who knows exactly what matters to her and doesn’t let anything distract her from her passion.

What matters most to you? Have you made room in your life for whatever it is you love? Have you cleared the clutter, the distractions, so you can spend more time focused on what matters to you? Do your spaces reflect who you are and what you love as well as Anna Dello Russo’s do?

Posted by Erin on May 7, 2012 | 33 Comments | Tweet This

Start a full-room organizing project with a blank canvas

Earlier this week, our landlord brought in floor layers to pull up the carpet in our master bedroom and replace it with wood flooring. This meant we had to get everything except for the bed frame and mattress out of the room so the flooring guys could work their magic.

Once the crew finished, we moved our dresser, alarm clock, lamps, nightstand, and a bench back into the room. Then, we made the bed, rolled out a new area rug, and stopped moving things back into the space. We didn’t move anything else back into the room because we loved the way it felt with nothing else in there. Without clutter and extraneous furniture, our bedroom felt calm and relaxing again. When talking to each other about the room, my husband and I have used the words refuge and retreat numerous times to describe it. Now, we’re in the process of finding new homes for all the other things that were in the room, such as we moved the hamper to the bathroom, relocated family photographs and books to the bookshelf in the living room, and took a box of charity donations to Goodwill. We were surprised by the amount of stuff that was living in our bedroom that we didn’t want to have in there.

This exercise was a good reminder that there are significant advantages to moving everything out of a space as the first step of a full-room uncluttering and organizing project. When you remove everything, you get to see the bare bones of the room. Additionally, you can bring items one-by-one back into a space to decide if you really want something in that room and be attuned to its presence and its best place. It’s also immediately obvious when a room looks and feels the way you want it to, and you know that everything outside the room needs to be trashed/recycled/donated/relocated because it doesn’t belong in the room.

When you’re uncluttering and organizing a full room, keep these questions in mind once the room is empty:

Structurally, does any repair work need to be completed in the room? Do walls need to be painted? Do floorboards need to be cleaned? Do any holes need to be patched or cobwebs vacuumed?
What are the purposes of this room? What are my goals for this space?
Is the large furniture in its best place? Should the furniture be rearranged?
Does all of the furniture need to come back into this space? Why? How does each piece of furniture help me to achieve the goals for this space?
Do the decorative elements in this room add or detract from the purposes of this room? Do they inspire me? Do I find them beautiful?
Do the other items that are going into this room belong in this room? Is this the best place for these items to live? Do I need these items to meet the goals of this room?
Are items placed where I use them? Is there a place for everything, and is everything in its place?
Once the room is set, decide if the items that didn’t make it back into the room need to be trashed, recycled, donated, or relocated. Be careful not to let the clutter from one room become clutter in another room.

If you don’t have the space in your home to temporarily hold all the furniture and items of another room, set down a tarp in your yard or driveway and move your things outside (obviously, only do this in good weather). If you’re in an apartment or condo, give your neighbors a head’s up, and then take over the hallway for a few hours. I’ve found that when you use a space outside your home as a temporary holding location, you’re motivated to work quickly and efficiently, which is also a good thing.

The image above is not of our bedroom, but it certainly represents how our room feels to me now.

Posted by Erin on May 3, 2012 | 12 Comments | Tweet This

Small spaces: Custom closet using Ikea bookshelves

One of my favorite places for small living inspiration is Ikea Hackers. If you’re unfamiliar with the site, it’s a collection of reader-submitted modifications to pieces of furniture from Ikea. The hacks range from relatively small (like adding paint to a Lack table) to extremely involved (like turning a Spar butcher block into an electric guitar). The site has been around since 2006 and is teeming with ways to personalize Ikea furniture.

Earlier this month, the site featured Regina’s amazing closet for her itty bitty Swedish apartment. Under what I think is her lofted bed, she has five modified Expedit bookcases (in the 2×2 configuration) that she added a piece of wood to the base and then attached four casters to the bottom of the piece of wood. In the U.S., these Expedit shelving units are just $40 a piece and the Besta casters are $10 for two, so the whole system probably cost less than $350 to create, which isn’t bad for a custom closet that could easily cost four times this price. Visuals from the article:

The rolling bookcases not only hold her clothes, but also her hobby supplies (such as the sewing machine and fabric stash pictured above) and other necessities for her apartment. I like that she can roll the sewing Expedit directly to her sewing table, and then roll it all back into the closet when she’s done. The storage system is ideal for this small space, and I think could easily be utilized in other homes — small or large.

Note: There are casters that are specifically made to hold the Expedit bookcase, but they stick out beyond the base of the bookshelf, so you can’t nest the shelves directly next to each other. They’re also $5 more for two casters, which adds $50 to the cost of casters, but gets rid of the need to attach a piece of wood to the bottom of each bookcase. If you don’t need the items to nest next to each other, the Expedit casters might be a good alternative for you.

If you are unfamiliar with Ikea Hackers, spend some time perusing it for even more ideas. Most of the hacks are inexpensive and easy to do.

Images by Regina as posted to IkeaHackers, and thanks to reader Shalin for bringing this closet to our attention.

Posted by Erin on Apr 30, 2012 | 8 Comments | Tweet This

Ask Unclutterer: Displaying sentimental items in one location or spread throughout a house

Reader Amy submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer regarding sentimental items:

I do a pretty good job keeping my clutter contained. My partner is a clutterbug. We live in a small apartment in a big city and are preparing to move to a smaller apartment in a bigger city.

We have the clutter/anti-clutter conversation a lot, and our biggest problem is that even if we follow the display rule, it’s still lots of “treasures” all around our house collecting dust. What do you do with the treasures once you’ve decided which ones are display-worthy? We both rather like the idea of putting his treasures up on the wall somehow to keep it off the surfaces, and I am partial to having everything in one place, so there are obvious visual limits to how much stuff is allowed to stay (like shelves or some kind of cabinet).

What you’re trying to decide is if the sentimental items you’ve chosen to keep should be zoned together or zoned apart. Do you want a Sentimental Items District or would you rather they commingle with all the other design elements in your place?

I recommend starting with a Sentimental Items District. The first reason I think you should do this is just to get all of these pieces together on a series of shelves or in a display cabinet so you can really get a grasp on how much you have. Sometimes, when objects are spread throughout the house, they feel like a bigger collection than they actually are. Other times, you come to realize you have way more sentimental items than you intended.

Creating a Sentimental Items District is also a good idea because it forces you to be practical with how many items you can keep in your home. If you don’t have a single space that can display all your sentimental items, you’ll need to do some additional uncluttering to get your collection down to a size you can properly store. This is when the Unclutterer motto is a good one to recite to yourself: “A place for everything, and everything in its place.” I also like the Sentimental Items District because it forces you to be realistic about the maintenance and upkeep of these items. How long does it take you to dust all of them? How much room in your apartment do you have to provide to keep them? Are some of these items more valuable than others (what did we push to the back of the shelf to make room for what we really want to see)?

After three or four weeks of living with your Sentimental Items District, sit down and talk about how you want to display these items moving forward. Did you miss walking past your championship bowling trophy on the way to the kitchen each morning? Do you think only having your sentimental items in one place makes your home less personal? Did you like it better when you could be reminded of different memories as you moved through your home? Or, are you happy with the Sentimental Items District? Does it help you to make better choices about what is worth keeping and what isn’t? Do you prefer to have the majority of surfaces in your home free of sentimental items? Or, is there a middle ground that will work best for you? Do you think you would like to have two Sentimental Items Districts — one for framed family photographs on the fireplace mantel and then everything else in the display cabinet in the dining room? You’ll have to figure this out together, and there isn’t a right or wrong answer. Starting with the Sentimental Items District, though, will give you the opportunity to stop thinking about this issue in the abstract and really see how it would work in a concrete way.

Thank you, Amy, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column. I hope I answered your question, and be sure to check the comments for even more advice from our readers.

Posted by Erin on Apr 27, 2012 | 11 Comments | Tweet This

Are you prepared for severe weather and natural disasters?

This week is the first National Severe Weather Preparedness Week in the United States. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, along with a number of other acronym-identified organizations, started the week to help Americans prepare for floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, major thunderstorms, earthquakes, volcanoes, wildfires, and whatever else nature throws our way.

The first bit of advice they give is to identify what types of severe weather and natural disasters regularly affect your area. USA Today has a nice interactive map that lights up when you select the specific disaster. It’s not a perfect map — it doesn’t identify the Mid-Atlantic as having earthquakes or tornadoes, yet we had both in 2011 — but it’s decent for identifying the most likely disasters to hit a state.

Their second suggestion is to create a disaster kit and an emergency plan based on the disasters that are most likely to strike where you work and live. If you haven’t organized a kit or a plan, check out FEMA’s articles on how to build a disaster kit (they also have a flier with similar information) and how to make a plan to meet up with your family after a disaster strikes. They also recommend getting a NOAA Weather Radio. I noticed recently we didn’t have a single radio in our house, so I ordered one of these for our home. There are many different styles, I liked this one because in addition to batteries it has a crank and a solar panel for alternative energy sources.

The article doesn’t mention this, but it’s also a good idea to have an emergency kit in your car. The kits are small, easily fit into the trunk of your car, and can be life-saving in an emergency. If you don’t want to assemble one on your own, there are numerous kits available for purchase.

With all emergency kits, it is important to maintain them and check them twice a year. If you already have kits, National Severe Weather Preparedness Week is a good time to go through them and make sure all parts are present, in good condition, and nothing has expired. Even though they’re not fancy, emergency kits are extremely useful gifts for graduating seniors.

Related:

“Making a family first aid kit“
“2010 Holiday Gift Giving Guide: Kits“

Posted by Erin on Apr 24, 2012 | 15 Comments | Tweet This

Pre-paid postage greeting cards save time

It’s the smallest of improvements that often make the biggest difference in my life. For example, Hallmark made mailing cards significantly easier in February with the release of their postage-paid envelopes.

My sister-in-law sent my son a card in one of these envelopes a few weeks ago and when I saw the envelope with that image printed on it, I actually cheered. (I’m weird, I know.) From Hallmark’s corporate website:

Hallmark Postage-Paid Greetings feature the U.S. Postal Service’s Intelligent Mail barcode on the front of the envelope. When the cards are processed at a Postal Service facility, the barcode automatically indicates to the Postal Service the postage is paid. The postage is treated like a Forever stamp, and its value will always be equal to the price of a standard First-Class stamp, regardless of when it’s mailed.

In the article “Birthday cards and reminder systems” from back in 2007, I wrote about how I buy all my cards for the year at a single time to be more efficient. I’ve also been buying enough Forever stamps to cover all the postage for those cards around the same time. These new pre-paid envelopes make it so I don’t have to worry about the second step in the process. Also, it saves time if I need to pick up a last-minute card at the store — I just sign the card and drop it into any mailbox without having to go to the post office (which, since I haven’t yet bought my supply of cards for the year, I’ve actually done twice in the last week). Hallmark saves me from having to run another errand, and I like not having to run errands.

These new envelopes might not be for everyone, especially if you never mail cards, but for someone like me who sends a lot of cards they’re extremely convenient.

What small improvements have made a big difference in your life recently? Share your finds in the comments.

Posted by Erin on Apr 23, 2012 | 22 Comments | Tweet This

Determining if a sentimental item is clutter or a treasure

In January, Bubba Watson bought the General Lee that jumped over the police car at the end of the opening sequence to the television show The Dukes of Hazzard. Watson, who won the Masters golf tournament this weekend, is reported as having said the car was his “dream car” and sought out the car’s auction.

Without a doubt, the General Lee is a sentimental item to Watson. He probably loved the television show. He probably associates the car and The Dukes of Hazzard with very happy memories from his childhood. He treasures it and will likely put it on display and dust it regularly with a cloth diaper. If the mood strikes, he may even drive it.

Conversely, if the General Lee had been in my garage, I would have found it to be sentimental clutter. I have no affinity for the car and never really got into the television show. I wouldn’t want to waste the garage space on it, and I wouldn’t want to pay for its upkeep. I would have eagerly sold it or given it away to get it off my hands.

This example of the car illustrates the most important point with regard to sentimental items — only the owner of the object can determine if something is a treasure or clutter. I’m certain my husband believes my collection of Mold-A-Rama animals is clutter, but to me it’s pure happiness and joy. The animals remind me of the vacations we’ve taken and the fun we’ve had locating the Mold-A-Rama machines. My husband’s favorite stuffed toy from his childhood looks like a germ minefield to me, but to him carries wonderful memories from years past. So what does this point mean for an unclutterer? Only you can sort through your sentimental items. This isn’t a chore you can pass off to someone else.

The second point the car example illustrates is that sentimental treasures are respected and treated as treasures. Watson displays the car, maintains it, pays attention to it, and values it. He doesn’t have it shoved in the back of his garage, under a pile of stuff, collecting dust. If it could fit in a cardboard box, you can bet he wouldn’t store it in such a thing. In fact, he probably has a security system and sprinkler system installed to protect his treasure.

If you’re storing sentimental items in cardboard boxes in your basement or attic or garage, it’s a pretty good sign the items are clutter and not treasures. Cardboard is easily damaged by water, mold, mildew, and pests and doesn’t protect belongings for any length of time. Plus, you can’t see your items or appreciate them through the walls of a box in a corner of a room beneath boxes of holiday decorations. If you truly treasured the items, you would protect them properly and/or display them in your home. It would be clear to a complete stranger what is a sentimental treasure to you. If it’s unclear, it’s likely the item is sentimental clutter.

As you’re sorting through your sentimental items to determine what is a treasure and what is clutter, ask yourself:

How will I store this item? If you will store it in a way that shows you value the item (archival quality materials, stored per archival quality recommendations, or cleanly on display to enjoy every day), keep the object as a sentimental treasure. If you plan to store it in a cardboard box in your basement, get rid of the sentimental clutter.
Is this item associated with a happy memory? Keep only objects that bring you happiness. Life is too short to surround yourself with sorrow and pain.
Is this the best item to evoke the most powerful sentimental memory? If you have five objects associated with the same memory, consider reducing your collection to just the best quality item. When it comes to physical possessions, too many of something can detract from the overall impact. You can stop seeing the proverbial forest for the trees.

Posted by Erin on Apr 10, 2012 | 30 Comments | Tweet This

The Cubby: An uncluttered coat hook

Well designed, superior quality, visually appealing, utilitarian goods that make life more organized and less complicated are the types of products I look for when shopping for housewares and office supplies. I try to only have things in my spaces that, as William Morris so aptly identified as his ownership goals, are beautiful and useful. When I no longer feel inspired by an item or find it helpful, I get rid of it.

I recently stumbled upon a Kickstarter project for a simple device that meets all of my qualifications for making life more organized and less complicated. The Cubby makes traditional coat hooks look like they’re not living up to their potential:

Key ring, phone, gloves, sunglasses, and/or wallet fit right inside the pouch, and a purse, scarf, laptop bag, and/or coat on the exterior of the pouch. It’s made with some recycled materials and is fully recyclable. It’s easy to use, attractive in a modern space, and would be perfect for a reception station near the primary entry to your home or office.

Have you come across a better mouse trap? Do you know anyone who is designing or has designed a high-quality, visually appealing, utilitarian good that helps to make life more organized and less complicated? Share your finds in the comments.

And, again, I have no affiliation with this product and am not benefitting in any way from talking about it. I simply think it’s an uncluttered and useful product.

Posted by Erin on Apr 9, 2012 | 19 Comments | Tweet This

New storage products for the home

As I mentioned last week, I recently attended the National Association of Professional Organizers’ 24th annual conference in Baltimore. One of my favorite parts of the conference is the exposition hall, which is filled with manufacturers, retailers, and service providers who work closely with the professional organizing industry. Many of these providers use the conference to introduce new items that aren’t yet on the market, as well as to solicit suggestions for how professional organizers think products can be improved.

Today, I want to feature some more of these new and yet-to-be released products so you can see the latest trends in organizing. A couple of the items are in the “new-to-me” category, but most of them will also be new to you. To be clear, I’m not getting any sort of payment or kick-backs for writing about these products. These are simply the items I found interesting and helpful for common organizing problems.

I’ve grouped the items into themes, and today I want to feature storage solutions –

The Rubbermaid Company has two new products that make me very happy. One of my biggest complaints about large storage bins is that they are more like buckets than useful bins. Small items always sift down to the bottom and to find anything you have to dump everything out to get to it. Rubbermaid is addressing this problem first with their Bento Box with Flex Dividers:

It’s difficult to tell from this image, but inside the box are dividers that are attached to the side of the box that pop out if you want divided interior space or rest flush against the sides of the box if you don’t want dividers. The Bento Boxes are available online and at Target stores.

The second Rubbermaid item is a tray insert for their Clever Store plastic bins. The trays make it easy to store small items in a separate compartment from the deep bin below the tray. I think they’re perfect for toy storage where a doll and her small accouterments can be stored in the tray and then all of the doll’s clothes could fit in the lower bin.

Next up is a custom drawer organizer that has won my heart after just a week of use. The organizer consists of a flexible mat (mine is neon green, I won a sample during a workshop) and 15 dividers. The mat can be cut to fit any drawer and the dividers can be placed anywhere you need them. The dividers grip to the mat and can be repositioned easily. I thought the dividers were going to pop off every time I moved a utensil, but they don’t. I’ve decided the whole DrawerDecor Organizer is magic:

The last product I want to discuss is something that I saw and instantly knew would be perfect for all the visual processors who read the blog. The product is called Pliio and it is a product that fits inside your clothes when you fold them. (It stays in the clothes.) You can use it in your clothes that you put in drawers like a filing system, but that isn’t my favorite way to use the product. What I like best about it is that it allows you to put your clothes on shelves like books:

If you’re someone who puts things in drawers and then instantly forgets those those things exist, the Pliio is great for you. Being able to line your clothes up on your shelves lets you see each item in a highly organized fashion. The product creator (her name is Clare and that is her in the picture on HSN) told me there are versions of the Pliio for sheets in the works, which I think would work wonders in linen closets.

Have you seen any new storage products that can help to organize the home? Share your finds and/or comments about these items in the comments.

Posted by Erin on Apr 2, 2012 | 31 Comments | Tweet This

New paper sorting and filing products

Four days last week, I attended the National Association of Professional Organizers’ 24th annual conference in Baltimore. It was nice to see so many terrific leaders in the industry and catch up on the latest trends and research relating to uncluttering and organizing.

One of my favorite parts of the conference is the exposition hall, which is filled with manufacturers, retailers, and service providers who work closely with the professional organizing industry. Many of these providers use the conference to introduce new items that aren’t yet on the market, as well as to solicit suggestions for how professional organizers think products can be improved.

Today, and then a couple days next week, I want to feature some of these new and yet-to-be released products so you can see the latest trends in organizing. A couple of the items are in the “new-to-me” category, but most of them will also be new to you. To be clear, I’m not getting any sort of payment or kick-backs for writing about these products. These are simply the items I found interesting and helpful for common organizing problems.

I’ve grouped the items into themes, and today I want to feature the new paper sorting and filing products –

Pendaflex has a few new products that caught my attention. The first is their PileSmart View Folders. If you’re someone who insists on piling papers instead of using a filing cabinet, these are folders for important papers that include tabs so you can easily see what you’re searching for in your stack:

Another Pendaflex product I like is their Divide It Up File Folders. These are great for sub-dividing paperwork for small projects:

The final Pendaflex product I thought could be useful are their new Ready-Tab Hanging File Folders. Instead of hunting for plastic tabs to insert into the folder or having those tabs accidentally pop off, the tabs are part of the folder and pull out of the folder itself:

The Smead Company is now making Lockit Pocket Folders that have a tab at the top of the folder to keep papers from sliding out during transport. These are great for important papers you can’t afford to have slip out of their folders:

Next up is Smead’s Vertical Divided File, which is so new you can’t even order them yet. They are vertical folders with interior pockets and tabbed dividers. These would be great for organizing a trip, similar to the Pendaflex Divide It Up Folder, but for folks who prefer vertical folders:

Also related to the topic of paper management was word from the people at Fujitsu that we should expect to see updates coming to the ScanSnap 1300 series of scanners at some point during the summer. They were tight-lipped as to what those updates are, so I imagine they’re going to be good ones.

Posted by Erin on Mar 29, 2012 | 9 Comments | Tweet This

Build your uncluttering and organizing skills by helping others

After being told by a teacher in high school that my writing was “average, at best,” I set out on a mission to improve my writing skills. I studied and practiced during my free time, which was an odd pastime for a teenager, and I pushed myself to learn whatever I could. I found I really enjoyed writing, and ended up pursuing a journalism degree in college. In graduate school, I kept with the writing theme and produced my master’s thesis on how to help non-native English speakers acquire vocabulary words based on morphemes to improve their writing and reading comprehension. Studying texts, taking classes, researching the brain and how it stores and uses languages were all fine methods for acquiring information about writing, and my writing did improve — but it wasn’t until I stepped into a classroom and taught 15-year-old students how to improve their writing that I truly blossomed as a writer.

My first year of teaching, a student wrote on a worksheet the following misquoted phrase from The Great Gatsby: “the cocktail yellow music.”

I knew “the cocktail yellow music” wasn’t grammatically correct (nor was it how Fitzgerald had penned it), but I didn’t know why. I didn’t want to mark it wrong on my student’s worksheet until I was sure I could explain to her why it was wrong. I tracked down an accomplished linguistics professor, and she explained to me that adjectives in English have a preference order. As a native English speaker, I instinctually used adjectives in the correct order but had never once thought about it. The adjectives simply flowed out of me in the way that sounded correct. Obviously, the phrase should be “the yellow cocktail music,” which is how it appears in the original text. The grammatical reason it should be this way is because color adjectives are listed before purpose adjectives. Yellow (a color) needs to come before the purpose for the music (the cocktail party). (If you’re curious: More information on adjective order in English.)

Three or four times a week, a student would ask me questions I couldn’t yet answer or make mistakes with their writing I knew were wrong but didn’t know why. I was pushed to learn why the word it takes the possessive unlike other words in the English language, why we say beef when talking about eating cows but don’t have separate words for eating fish or vegetables, why our brains go blind to overused words like said when we read, why it’s now acceptable to split infinitives but wasn’t always, how the passive voice can sometimes better convey information than the active voice, why it’s okay to end sentences with prepositions, and thousands of other specific quirks related to English communication. Teaching young adults how to improve their writing significantly improved my writing. Then, practicing these skills daily has helped me to retain what I learned.

I’ve found the exact same thing to be true with uncluttering and organizing. The more I help others to unclutter and organize their spaces, the better I become at doing these tasks in my own home and office. When I help others, my skill set benefits.

If you’re having issues in your own spaces with clutter and disorganization, help friends to unclutter and organize their homes and offices. Share what knowledge you have (which is probably more than you give yourself credit for knowing) and be open to learning through the process and from your friend. Seek out answers and solutions, and also absorb what you can from those around you. Practice, practice, practice your skills with your friends. Then, if you have good friends, they will return the favor and help to mentor you as you go through your uncluttering and organizing projects. You also may feel confident after your experiences to simply take on your projects alone.

If your friends aren’t game for such an activity, donate some of your time to a charity to clean out and organize a soup kitchen pantry or a game room at a women’s shelter or a clothing closet for a group that provides clothes for job interviews. Mentor your children by bringing them with you to sort materials at a charity’s donation site. You don’t have to work with people you know to build your skills, and it’s often easier to work with items void of your sentimental attachments.

Get out there and help others, which will in turn help build your uncluttering and organizing skills.

Posted by Erin on Mar 26, 2012 | 20 Comments | Tweet This

Space-saving solutions for small homes

Although I grew up spending weekends on our family farms shucking corn and talking to Bessie the Cow (all the cows had the same name, it was easier that way), I am a big-city girl at heart. I long to be in a city with a coffee shop right around the corner and pavement under my feet. And for most people, myself included, city living is synonymous with small-space living.

Even though I’m currently living in Suburbia, I’m looking forward to our next home that will hopefully be in a more metropolitan location. As a result, I am constantly on the lookout for space-saving solutions to use in our next big-city dwelling. The following are some of the terrific ideas that have recently caught my attention:

The website Apartment Therapy featured D.C. residents’ Josh and Lauren’s dining table artwork. It’s a table that hangs on the wall when not in use –

The now-defunct magazine Ready Made included a formica countertop on wheels in its article “Southern Comfort.” The countertop rolls into the kitchen for food preparation space and then rolls out into the remainder of the room to create a dining table –

Continuing with dining solutions, back in 2010, Dwell showcased a wall hiding a bookshelf that folded down to create a table set atop a rolling island –

Short walls are also called pony walls or knee walls and Better Homes and Garden suggests cutting into them to create untapped storage space in their article “26 Great Bathroom Storage Ideas” –

Have you spotted any small-space fixes recently? Share links to more space-saving ideas in the comments. I’m always searching for uncluttered and efficient solutions.

Posted by Erin on Mar 22, 2012 | 21 Comments | Tweet This

Spring is here and cleaning is in the air

Around 1:15 this morning, those of us in the northern hemisphere officially started spring. The local weathermen explained to me as I sipped my coffee that because this is a leap year, spring showed up on the calendar a day early. As we did yard work and waved to our neighbors over the weekend, it was obvious — at least in our part of the country — that winter had ended.

If spring sprung up on you and took you by surprise, the following 10 tasks are what I consider to be the most valuable spring cleaning activities. These are the Firsts, the things to get to before the other activities:

Check fire extinguishers, furnace filters, and batteries in your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors (if you didn’t do these tasks when you moved your clocks ahead an hour). Remember, safety first.
Purge all expired food from your refrigerator and pantry. If you’re unsure of an item’s freshness, check StillTasty.com and/or the product’s website (especially good for condiments that take up near-permanent residence in the door of your refrigerator).
Clean gunk out of your gutters if you have gutters.
Rake the last batch of dead leaves out of your yard and pick up sticks and debris that fell during the last few months of winter.
Inspect any lawn maintenance chemicals you had stored for the winter, such as pesticides or fertilizers. Make sure none of these items are leaking or expired.
Have your law mower serviced so it’s ready and working when your yard is ready to mow.
Dust. I like to carry a hand vacuum with me as I go to suck the grime off the cloth.
Move furniture (including your bed and bookshelves) and vacuum or sweep every inch of your floors.
If you have pets, bring out the Furminator and start the regular task of brushing to get rid of that heavy winter coat.
Sort through your clothing and coat closets and donate to charity all items you never plan to wear again. Clean heavy sweaters you intend to keep and take steps to properly store them to prevent pest invasions over the summer. Clean and put away heavy winter boots and shoes. Finally, bring out any stored warmer weather clothes and get your wardrobe ready for the next six months.

What must-do items are on your spring cleaning list? If I don’t do the items listed above, I feel like I’m not ready for spring. How about you?

More spring cleaning tips and advice from our archives:

“Spring cleaning tips from Lifehacker”
“Spring cleaning in the yard”
“Five spring organizing activities”
“Seeing spring”
In my book, Unclutter Your Life in One Week, there is an exhaustive checklist of spring cleaning activities that begins on page 185.

Posted by Erin on Mar 20, 2012 | 7 Comments | Tweet This

Safety: The most important uncluttering and organizing standard

Safety is a far cry from being the most interesting subject in the uncluttering and organizing realm. However, it is at the heart of every uncluttering and organizing project (or, at least it should be). Even if it isn’t named outright, safety concerns are the first and most important issue to consider when taking on your next project.

Clutter, in many forms, can be a safety hazard. Massive amounts of paper can be fuel for a house or office fire. Undetected black mold behind stacks of clutter in a basement or garage can poison the air your family breathes. Clutter that blocks a door or covers a floor can inhibit safe exit during an emergency, and stacked items can fall on people during natural disasters.

Getting rid of items is usually thought of as a safe step, but isn’t always the case. Hazardous items disposed of improperly can injure waste management workers or harm the environment by accidentally poisoning water supplies or wild animals.

Storage can be a safety hazard, too. If materials you’re keeping are stored improperly, you could be putting yourself and your family at risk. Cleaning supplies can accidentally be mixed and create poisonous gasses or if they’re easily accessed could be lethal to a toddler. There is also the risk of injury if heavy items are stored too high and someone falls or pulls a muscle accessing those items. Putting things in cardboard boxes can be bad because critters and insects can get into the boxes, and so can black mold and mildew if the boxes get wet.

To improve the safety in your home or office, start by identifying all the existing hazards. Are you using a fireproof safe to store your papers? Are you overloading the electrical outlets? Is clutter or arrangement of furniture blocking safe exit from a space? Is there black mold or mildew or anything rotting?

Immediately address all safety concerns and be sure to do so in a way that doesn’t create more hazards. Research ways to safely dispose of any questionable materials.

When uncluttering and organizing, be sure to keep safety as your most important priority. Store items in containers that are safe for what you are storing and pest/critter/mold/mildew resistant. Have all pathways clear of clutter. Arrange items so you aren’t at risk of being injured when accessing or returning items to storage. Do whatever you need to do to keep your home and office safe for you and others.

Posted by Erin on Mar 12, 2012 | 22 Comments | Tweet This

Organizing solutions for renters

A common disadvantage of renting is most landlords prohibit structural changes to their properties. As a result, organizing can be trickier in a rental property than in a home you own. Creativity is a must when seeking out these uncommon solutions. The following ideas and products might be of use to renters looking to reconfigure storage options, and hopefully they also get your creativity flowing.

Use existing hardware to support alternatives. Hang a closet doubler (pictured) from a rod to extend hanging area in the vertical space. Shelf inserts create shallower shelves in cabinets with deep shelves. Over-the-door storage pockets, baskets, and specialty items (like an iron and ironing board holder) can be helpful.
Apply removable items. I am a huge fan of utilitarian and decorative removable hooks. I’ve recently been introduced to the Um! brand of removable hooks, and have the “clown nose” one (pictured) in my kitchen holding dish towels. They’re great for getting so many things up and off the floor. If your place doesn’t have curtain rods or blinds, use frosted window clings to gain privacy in bedrooms and bathrooms without having to drill a single hole into a wall. Magnetic towel bars are great in the kitchen on a dishwasher or refrigerator.
Repurpose small areas of the house. A bookshelf placed in a closet creates simple shelving instead of hanging space. A room divider with photo frames or shelving (pictured) can hide water heaters or other exposed areas of your apartment you don’t want others to see.
Think like MacGyver. Okay, so you may not need to create a gas-powered car out of a roll of duct tape and some fishing lures, but the point is to look at old things in new ways. For example, spring-tension curtain rods (they come in many sizes: 18-23 in., 41-76 in., up to 90 in.) can fit vertically or horizontally on shelves and in drawers to create dividers.

What organizing hacks have you implemented in a rental space? Share your tips and suggestions in the comments.

Posted by Erin on Mar 8, 2012 | 15 Comments | Tweet This

Spring forward and tackle a few quick chores

In the wee early hours of this coming Sunday morning, most of the US will spring forward an hour to begin Daylight Savings Time. This change in the clock is also a great time to take on a few quick spring chores.

Check your smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors. In addition to replacing their batteries and testing their alarms, be sure to also check the units’ expiration dates. For the safety of you and your family, you want to make sure all of these devices are functioning at their best. If you can’t find expiration dates on your alarms and detectors, replace them every 10 years.
Recycle batteries. Since you’ll be removing old batteries from all your smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors and replacing them with new ones, now is a terrific time to recycle all the old batteries you’ve collected over the past six months, too. If your regular recycling program doesn’t accept batteries, remember that every Best Buy in the US does. They also accept all kinds of old electronics and some appliances, so check out what services your local store offers and recycle some other clutter while you’re at it.
Turn on the water. If you shut off the water to all your exterior water faucets in the fall, now is a great time to turn those faucets back on for the spring. Now, if you live in the far north where you’re likely to have another hard freeze before spring finally sets in, you may want to wait on this one. For those of us who already have blooming flowers and budding trees, however, it’s a lot less risky to turn them on now. If you need to bring out water hoses, pull them out of storage, too.

What other chores do you like to do when the clocks spring forward an hour? Share your suggestions in the comments.

Posted by Erin on Mar 5, 2012 | 22 Comments | Tweet This

Are the rooms of your house working for your current needs and tastes?

At dinner the other night, my friend Melissa commented about how her family growing up never changed things in their houses once they occupied them. If there was wood panelling on the walls when the family moved into a house, there was wood panelling on the walls when they moved out of it. If her mother hung a picture in the hallway, that same picture was hanging in the same spot the entire time they lived in that house. Couches, chairs, and dressers were never rearranged.

As Melissa explained this frozen-in-time behavior, I realized my grandmother was that way, too. Not a single picture or wall color or piece of carpet changed in her house during my childhood. She added a library onto the house when I was in elementary school, but once that room was decorated, it wasn’t altered in any way.

Since moving into our current house a year ago, we have done the same thing. We unpacked boxes, set up furniture, and hung artwork on the walls, and then let things stay. There are numerous ares of the house that aren’t working for us, but we haven’t attended to them.

It’s time we did. We need nightstands in the master bedroom (a year of putting things on the floor is too long), the pantry needs a makeover, the laundry room has become a storage room (and it needs to be turned back into a laundry room), our living room needs a better arrangement, and the cable panel must be installed on my desk because I’m tired of looking at cables.

The one year mark is a good time to evaluate how you’re living in your space and make changes if you’re dissatisfied with it or if it isn’t supporting your needs. We’re getting ready to embark on this evaluation and improvement process, and I’ll share with you the daily tasks we plan to tackle in March:

Room Purpose. Start simply by taking 15 minutes or so to walk through every room and write down all the things you do (and hope to do) in the space. Your kitchen might be a place to prepare food, serve snacks and small meals, and store food and cooking equipment. Your kitchen might also be where your children do homework or you have your home office or where you keep the family calendar.
Uncluttering. For most readers, myself included, this part of the process will take more than one evening. We’re dedicating one room per night to uncluttering. We did a good amount of uncluttering in 2011, so we’re not expecting a room to take more than one evening. If you need more time for each room, schedule that on your calendar.
Repairs. Walk through each room again, and this time note any structural repairs that need to take place. Is a window cracked? Has the garbage disposal stopped working? Make note of all the repairs that need to take place (not improvements, those will come later).
Appointment Setting. Make appointments for all of the must-do repair work that has to be completed to keep your home safe and in good condition. The only exception to this might be if you plan to do major renovation work and want to have a contractor take care of all the odds and ends at the same time as the big work. I’m assuming, however, that most readers aren’t looking to renovate their homes right now and just need to get the broken items fixed.
Planning Improvements. Time to take another walk through the rooms of your home and decide all of the changes you wish to make. Consult the list you created on the first day of what exactly takes place in each room. Make sure all of these purposes are addressed in your improvements, if you have any. You may simply want to rearrange furniture to better suit the needs of the room. Or, you may want to organize some shelves or get storage containers or paint the walls. What improvements do you want to make?
Budget. Many home improvements, even the small ones, come with a price tag. Sit down and review your budget and see how much money you have to devote to the improvements you’ve listed.
Making Improvements. Again, set aside one or more evenings to work on a specific room making the improvements you desire. Change out the artwork or carpet, organize a cabinet, move the furniture or hang new shelves.

Mark on your calendar for a year from now when you will go through this process again. Keep your home from becoming a museum, based on whatever random design you determined on the day you moved into your house (or apartment or office or wherever it is you spend a good chunk of your time). It’s very likely your needs and tastes must have changed a little since you moved into your place, and will continue to change as you are in your home.

Posted by Erin on Mar 1, 2012 | 21 Comments | Tweet This

The second pass

One of our local libraries recently asked for donations for their upcoming used book sale. The revenues from this sale help to supplement their funding over the year and they also go through the donations to see if there are any books in good condition they wish to add to their collection. I love this time of year because it gives me an excuse to go through my bookshelves to see if there are any titles I’m ready to give away for the sale.

In the article, “Keeping book clutter off the bookshelf,” I outlined the standards I use to decide which books to keep and which ones to donate, recycle, or toss. Now that I’m a regular Kindle user, I added a fourth standard to my Donate, Recycle, or Toss list that includes getting rid of books easily accessible in the public domain. If I can find it for free online and easily download it to my e-reader, I donated the book to my library for their used book sale. I use Google Books and my library’s digital checkout system Overdrive (a very large number of public libraries in the US use this service, so check it out to see if yours is included) as my online resources.

Inevitably, as was again the case this year, a week or two after the donation period for the sale I’ll look at my bookshelves and spot even more books I could have donated. It’s as if the first pass was a practice run and helped me to build up courage to be even more thorough with my uncluttering efforts. Instead of letting the books linger on the shelf until the next year, I grab a box and complete the second pass.

The second pass has become a vital step in my uncluttering process, whether I’m getting rid of clutter off my bookshelves or in my kitchen pantry or in the linen closet or my wardrobe. I’ll always find at least one more thing to donate, recycle, or toss, but usually I find enough items to justify a second trip to a local charity. In the case of books, another nearby library has a used book sale a couple months later, so I simply make a drive to the other library to donate the second pass books there.

When completing a second pass, I don’t usually need to go back to reference the standards I used on the first pass. The only question I ask myself during the second pass is, “Do I really want this?” If I have finally admitted to myself I’m never going to finish reading a book on my bookshelf, the second pass is when I’ll pass it along to someone who will read it. If a shirt is a pain to care for, and I don’t get enough enjoyment out of wearing the piece of clothing as I should for the amount of energy I have to invest in it, the second pass is when it’s most likely to get added to the donation pile. Being brutally honest with myself is all the second pass typically requires.

The second pass is also a good time to evaluate the organizing work you did after the uncluttering process. Is everything in its best place? Does everything still have room for storage? Are the items you’re accessing most frequently in the most convenient to reach locations? Are items you’re not accessing very often in the less convenient to reach locations? Is there anything you need to do to improve your initial organizing efforts?

Do you do a second pass on your uncluttering efforts to make sure that you didn’t accidentally leave clutter in your collections? If you haven’t been doing a second pass of the areas of your home and office you’ve uncluttered, I recommend you schedule it on your calendar for a few days or weeks after your first pass in your uncluttering process. My guess is you’ll find one or more items you’re now ready to purge from your bookshelves, or whatever area you’ve recently uncluttered.

Posted by Erin on Feb 27, 2012 | 20 Comments | Tweet This

Ask Unclutterer: How do I convince my spouse to get rid of unnecessary papers?

Reader Kat submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

How do I get my husband and stepson to follow the systems I set up? How do I work with other people to attain organization? How can I convince my husband that we don’t need to keep every piece of paper that crosses our threshold??

Full disclosure: Kat’s email was significantly longer than the paragraph of questions quoted here. The gist of the other part of her message was that her family has incredible qualities, they’re truly wonderful people, they just LOVE keeping paper and not doing anything with it except for stacking it. This behavior drives Kat, a newlywed, batty.

Kat, the first thing you need to do is accept that you live with paper keepers and stackers. It’s who they are. They were this way before you married into the family two years ago, and you will never be able to force them into becoming shredders, scanners, and filers. As much as you want to, you can’t force anyone into being an unclutterer.

That being said, you can implement strategies to help you deal with your frustrations about their behavior, and you can also talk with them about your uncluttered and organized preference and hope they choose to adopt them.

The first step is to sit down and have a family meeting about the paper situation in your home. If you can maintain a calm conversation at home, have it there. If voices are likely to be raised, take pictures of the rooms in your house that are cluttered with paper and head with your family to a restaurant to have the conversation in public. People are much more likely to keep level-headed in public spaces.

During your conversation, be specific with how you feel about the paper clutter, the impact the paper clutter is having on your life (don’t over dramatize, state only facts), and describe exactly how you wish the space to look. Then, ask your husband and your son how they feel about the paper clutter in the house, how is it impacting their lives, and how they want their home to look. Try your best to come to an agreement between the three of you for how you want your space to look. You will have to give a little, and they will have to give a little, but the three of you should agree on a state that works for all of you. Then, discuss in detail how you plan to make the vision a reality.

If you cannot agree upon the way you want the house to look, I strongly recommend seeking the help of a therapist. Talking things over with a person who doesn’t live in your house can help significantly in these situations.

After you decide on the desired state of your home, everyone should do a walk through of the entire paper handling process with each other to make sure everyone will work in the same way. Since you already own a shredder and scanner, everyone should practice on the equipment. Don’t be condescending to each other, just walk through the process.

Then, when the walk-through is over, you need to trust your family to stick to the plan. You also have to stick to the plan, no exceptions. If your husband or son do not follow the agreed upon behavior, they have two choices. Ask, “The three of us agreed that we want our home to look a specific way. Do you still agree with this or has something changed and we need to revisit our goals?” As long as the person still agrees with the goals, he will very likely get up and process the papers appropriately. If the person no longer agrees with the goals, you need to sit back down and have the conversation about paper in your home again.

If the paper situation doesn’t bother anyone but you and neither your husband or son have interest in changing their ways, there may be a point where you will want to take over as the paper person for the house. You can’t take over this role without the permission of your husband and son. If everyone is okay with you being the paper person, though, trade it out for chores you don’t want to do but that your husband and son do. Maybe you agree to process paper and your husband agrees to do all the yard work? Maybe you agree to process paper and your son agrees to load and unload the dishwasher every night after dinner? Whatever trade you decide to make, be sure the chores are as close as possible to taking the same amount of time and energy to complete. We do this separation of responsibilities with numerous home maintenance work in our home.

Thank you, Kat, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column. Good luck getting the paper under control in your home and be sure to check the comments for even more suggestions from our readers.

Posted by Erin on Feb 24, 2012 | 22 Comments | Tweet This

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