The right organizational systems do wonders for your home and your mind.
Your Health
Clearing the Clutter
Professional organizers explain how to get rid of the junk and move on with your life.
BY
Lisa Waterman Gray
PHOTOGRAPHY
iStockphoto/Bryan Reese; iStockphoto/Angel Herrero de Frutos

Your home should provide a retreat from the outside world, and your surroundings can have a strong influence on your ability to function effectively in daily life. De-cluttering around the house and increasing your organization helps reduce stress and increase productivity. It means removing all the obvious trash and developing a maintenance plan that will help you keep clutter at bay in the future.

Clutter also may be an outward expression of depression and/or anxiety, or perhaps a tendency to replace people with things, so people often must deal with emotional issues related to keeping clutter before they can address the clutter itself. If the idea of de-cluttering your entire home overwhelms you, determine which areas need the most attention and start there. Create a plan or system that will help you eliminate clutter and then start small — perhaps with a junk drawer or a medicine cabinet or work on one room in small blocks of time. Here are some ideas to get you going:

“Start out slow. Go through the sorting and purging stages first. Have a home for everything and choose the right containers. In your bathroom, use little bins in drawers or a Lazy Susan in your cabinet. In your closet, sort clothes by work and casual and by color. In the linen closet, use bins for small items and shelf dividers and keep like items with like  items.
-Rebecca Boehner, Savvy and Simple

“We wear 20 percent of our clothing 80 percent of the time, so I tell people at the change of seasons to pull everything out and put it in piles. Keep things you wear often; give away things with a poor fit or because you don’t like the way they look; throw away things with a broken zipper or stain; and store things you don’t wear often but still love.”
-Janie Davis, Space by Design

“It’s all about being able to space-plan. Everybody has a natural traffic pattern and there are ‘drop’ locations (for mail, cell phones, etc.). People naturally follow the path of least resistance, so plan the right places to put stuff along that path.”
-Shawn McCune, CKD, Kitchen Design Gallery and McCune Construction & Design

“Purging is good, and de-cluttering should be an ongoing process. By over-packing a closet, you end up wrinkling everything more. Develop a system to keep your   closet organized and determine what you can eliminate. The right tools make the job easier, and a custom closet optimizes the use of space. What people need most is good shelving, and you’ll get 40- to 100-percent more storage space with a well-organized closet system. And if you use all the same hangers or group by [clothing] colors, it will look less messy.”
-Mike McMahon, Life Uncluttered (by Affordable Closets)

“Establish zones in the house, deciding what the purpose of each area is, then, when you’re shopping, ask ‘Do I have a need for this? Do I have room for this?’ With family furniture ask, ‘Do I like it?’ and [if you do], showcase it.”
-Linda Henderson, CPO, Concepts in Organizing

“In your home office, process paperwork as soon as you get it. If you haven’t opened items after you touch them a third time, shred them. Store kitchen appliances you don’t use that often. Donate clothes, shoes and handbags that you haven’t used in two years and separate your drawers with dividers in terms of different colored items, or else black and navy socks may mix together.”
-Sarah Canfield, California Closets


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