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1. Enlist the help of a family member or friend who can be supportive, physically and emotionally, and help keep you on task.

2. Analyze each room, and list all the activities that need to be conducted in that space, recommends professional organizer MaryJo Monroe. Then sort items and toss, relocate, or donate items that do not serve the main function of the space.

3. Deal with the biggest items that are cluttering your room first so you can see an immediate impact. “Clearing a large amount of space will boost your morale,” adds Monroe.

4. Install organization systems that are intuitive. Every item needs a home, and the home must suit the need. For instance, if the entry hallway is always cluttered with shoes, put a basket there to contain them.

5. Take decluttering in small steps. Working one room at a time or even a portion of a room at a time, such as the kitchen countertop, will prevent you from becoming overwhelmed and tempted to call it quits. “Doing something feels better than doing nothing,” Monroe says.

6. When evaluating items that hold sentimental value, segregate the object from the memory. If you have Grandma’s china but don’t use it, consider keeping a teacup and saucer to display for that memory boost. Donating the rest to an appreciative family member who will use it is often a better way to honor a loved one’s memory.

7. It’s not only important to think in terms of getting organized but also staying organized. Employ a program of ongoing maintenance, even if it’s only a few minutes a day, so that cleanup occurs while clutter is still in the minimal—not mountainous—stage.

If the task still seems daunting, or the situation has gotten a bit too out of hand, consider hiring a professional organizer who’ll come to your home to help you prioritize and systematize. The nonprofit group National Association of Professional Organizers can help you find an expert in your area. For details, visit the group’s website at napo.net.

Illustration by Gwenda Kaczor.

7 Steps to Clutter Control The Saturday Evening Post

Some people wear their emotions on their sleeve. Others manifest it in the nest: The state of their homes reflects their state of mind. When depression sets in, the clutter can pile up.

Charles Miles can relate. He owns a three-bedroom Colonial-style home in Bogota, New Jersey, but when he’s feeling blue, routine maintenance is hard to keep up. “There are dishes in the sink. Newspapers on the floor. Instead of putting things away, I leave them where they are. I think, ‘What’s the point?’ I’m just not motivated. It’s the demon I fight all the time.”

Healthcare professionals know all too well the connection between clutter and depression. The abilities you need to keep a home clean and in relative order go by the wayside with depression. People who lose their drive find it hard to handle basic housekeeping and organizational tasks. “A systematic pattern of home neglect is really a form of self-neglect,” says Dr. Holly Parker, a practicing psychologist and faculty member of Harvard University. “People with depression often have low energy, almost like taking gas out of the tank of a car. They lose the motivation to do things they used to love to do. If they give up hobbies, they definitely won’t do housework.”

Clutter is difficult to contain under the best of circumstances. Every Felix Unger has a bit of Oscar Madison in him. For most, it’s a matter of having too much stuff and not enough places to store it. Some have called it an epidemic of affluenza. As a nation of affluence, we buy without thinking what we’re going to do with it, how we’re going to use it, and where we’re going to put it. And because we’re busier than ever, we have less time to figure it all out.

The fact is that previous generations simply didn’t have all the stuff we have today. They were never tempted by 24-hour shopping channels, blasted with emails about last-chance sales, or bombarded with catalogs and junk mail. Generations from baby boomers to millennials may have it all within reach, but most haven’t learned how to keep it in balance. Homes continue to grow fuller, despite our households growing smaller.

It’s not the whole problem, though. Clutter isn’t just about bringing new stuff into the home but the inability to purge the old. Some adhere to the waste not, want not school of housekeeping. Obsolete electronics? Clothes that haven’t fit in years? Broken tools? Folks with a Depression-era mindset hate to throw anything away. And then there are the objects with sentimental value, the biggest clutter culprits because they’re the hardest to part with of all. It’s little wonder why in the U.S. alone, the self-storage industry is a $22 billion business annually.

Living in clutter is more than just a matter of aesthetics. Clutter is an energy sapper that takes its emotional toll and steals domestic joy. If home is where the heap is, it’s a good bet family members are more stressed and less productive. It can create tension in personal relationships. It can cause people to be chronically behind schedule because they can’t find their car keys or they’re unable to sift through their closets for a complete outfit in the morning. And children can suffer as well. Some youngsters experience problems at school because they’re routinely late for class or under prepared for assignments.

Clutter comes in degrees, from mild to severe, from annoying to debilitating. While it can cause anxiety and depression, it can conversely be a symptom of a problem. Professional organizer MaryJo Monroe, owner of reSPACEd, a residential organization and design firm in Portland, Oregon, says one of the first things she notices working with a client who might be depressed is low energy output. “They don’t have stamina. Instead of working two to four hours at a stretch, they’ll start to poop out after an hour.” Another red flag is difficulty making decisions. When the ability to concentrate wanes, figuring out whether to keep, toss, or relocate things becomes impossible.

Self-esteem issues can be at the root. The attitude? I’m just not worth the effort. And it spirals downward from there. When it becomes hard to muster the motivation to turn things around, it can create a negative cycle that feeds on itself. People often become more stressed and more depressed because of the mess. And the inability to dig oneself out brings on feelings of hopelessness.

Losing his job of 14 years started a downward spiral for “John” who was living outside Seattle, Washington. He defaulted on his mortgage and lost his home. The stress caused the dissolution of his marriage and alcohol took over his life. “I started letting things go. Dishes piled up in the sink, garbage was almost never taken out. After all, what was the use? I knew I could pull myself out of it. But not today. Today I didn’t feel like it. I felt like sleeping.” Through the help of a friend, John went into a detox program and got help for his depression. He moved to a new state, got a new job and apartment. “As for how I feel when I come home, the difference is amazing. Coming home to a neat place, and knowing that everything in it—including the cleanliness—was earned by me, makes everything I do there, from waking up in the morning to watching the Late Show before I go to bed, that much sweeter.”

And that message of hope is exactly the one professionals strive to communicate.

Spring is an ideal time to start getting clutter under control. For many, seasons can have a powerful affect on their moods. In the spring, the days are longer, flowers start blooming, people are out and about. Those who struggle during the short, dark days of winter perk up in the spring. “It’s an uplifting time,” Parker says. “You can capitalize on that time of year by getting more things done and capitalize on that boost of mood that comes with longer days.”

Solving clutter problems is a two-step process that takes planning. The first part is getting to the root of the problem, and a number of treatments can help such as therapy, medication, and doing regular exercise.

The second part is putting a system in place. (See “Seven Steps to Clutter Control.”) Enlisting a friend or family member in the organizational process can give the chronically disorganized the cheerleading morale they need to keep going. A home that looks good helps us feel good. And New Jersey homeowner Charles Miles can relate to that, too. When his outlook brightens, tackling the clutter is job number one. His reward for a home organizational makeover is a sense of accomplishment and renewed self-confidence. “I feel great,” says Miles. “I’m like, ‘Let’s invite the neighbors over for dinner!’”

Illustration by Gwenda Kaczor.

End Clutter Now! The Saturday Evening Post

If you’re stuck working in an office building somewhere, you might look at those who work from home as incredibly lucky. But anyone who has done so for any length of time can tell you that working from home isn’t as easy as it sounds. It means working in a house full of distractions and diversions, trying to ignore the dirty dishes, laundry, barking dogs, bored kids, and all manner of other things that would be perfectly reasonable ways to procrastinate if you didn’t have all that work that needs to get done.

Photo by David Martyn Hunt.

Whether you’re a telecommuter for a large company or a freelancer working for clients all over the globe, the most important part of successfully working from home is a good home office. Where and how you choose to set yours up depends on the limitations of your home and your budget, but the experts agree that setting aside your own office space is essential.

1. Evaluate your work habits and needs.

Everyone’s different — one person’s concentration aid might be another’s distraction, and the things that make an inspiring office space to you might be incredibly annoying to someone else. So take a good look your work habits and figure out what works for you. Do you like things minimalist and Spartan or cozy and comfy? Do you like lots of artwork on the walls to inspire you, or do you prefer clean and clear swaths of color?

How you organize your office will also depend on the type of work you do. Do you accomplish all your daily tasks on the computer, or do you also need desk space to spread out papers or tasks? Do you have a lot of different tasks to keep track of at once, or are you mostly doing one thing at a time? A wide-open desk, lots of cubbyholes for organizing tools, or a multi-level inbox might be just the thing.

2. Declutter for maximum concentration.

Photo by EvelynGiggles.

Clutter is the bane of a productive office. Even if you tell yourself that you can ignore it, being surrounded by piles of paper and other clutter reminds your brain that you have dozens of other things to do, and part of your subconscious mind is thinking about those other incomplete tasks rather than the processes at hand.

The best way to deal with clutter is to make sure that everything has a home and that it lives there. Office supplies should have somewhere to be put away. Mail and other papers should have a specific filing system for before and after they’re dealt with. Knickknacks and other bits and bobs should generally not be kept on the desk.

3. Manage intentional distractions.

Distractions aren’t entirely a bad thing, despite everything we just said about clutter. The trick is to manage them so that you use them intentionally. Research has shown that taking short breaks actually increases productivity, and sometimes that distraction is just what your brain needs to make intuitive leaps and solve problems.

Musical instruments, art supplies, and physical, console, or computer-based games — whatever your distraction of choice, keep it accessible but not easily so. You want to be able to access the brain-boosting power of distraction without, well, letting it distract you!

4. Invest in quality furniture and peripherals.

You’re going to be using your office for 40 hours a week or more, it’s worth investing in quality products to put in it. While it might be tempting to just use whatever old chair, desk, or table lamp you have around the house, your life will be much easier if you actually do some research and take the time to get what works for you.

A comfortable, ergonomic work chair that’s properly sized to fit both you and your desk is essential. An ergonomic keyboard and mouse can be very helpful, and you might also want to try a buying (or building!) a standing desk to use instead of or in addition to your traditional desk.

5. Set the mood and environment.

Photo by Manuelsvay.

Use music, lighting, color, and other decor to make your home office somewhere you’ll enjoy spending time. Invest in some decent speakers, and create playlists of different types of music for different tasks. For some things, you might want classical; for others, techno.

Try to arrange your office so that you make the most of natural light. You don’t want glare to make reading your screen difficult, but most people find natural light and fresh air to be energizing. Houseplants can also brighten up a room and vastly improve air quality and concentration.

Do what works for you

The most important thing to remember about organizing your home office is that everyone has unique needs and desires. What works for your coworker might not work for you, and you should feel free to tweak and adjust any advice to your own specifications. You’re the one who has to work here, after all!

5 Tips for Organizing Your Home Office for Maximum Productivity The Saturday Evening Post

Photo By Hugh Kretschmer.

For some time the least-used part of our house, the basement, had been the cause of the most stress. Strewn about and packed into the sectioned spaces—a finished playroom with two storage rooms on either side with exposed cinderblock walls—were baby furniture and toys, car safety seats, obsolete electronics, boxes of books, cans of paint, camping and sports equipment, bags of jumble, and three boxes containing the entire written and photographic archives of a deceased wing of my mother’s family.

I was all for eBay and turning old stuff into cash, but neither my wife nor I could work up the enthusiasm to act on this idea. The cluttered space below the stairs where neither of us could bear to go slowly began to develop into a field of conflict. The two of us are of a single mind about many things—about most things—but we realized that we differ on stuff. It took us a while to realize this, but one day as we were struggling (okay, arguing) about the functionally cordoned off no-go zone down there, it hit me: I was a hoarder; she was a stockpiler.

There’s a fine distinction. As a hoarder, I can never let things go, sensing either sentimental or monetary value in items that are notable to my wife only because they occupy valuable space. I had boxes of postcards people sent me in the 1980s. I kept computer cables. (Hey, you never knew when they might come in handy.)

As a stockpiler, my wife is a member of a different species entirely. The stockpiler always buys more than he or she needs, then justifies it in economic terms. Buying in bulk saved my wife from having to make multiple trips to Costco and Trader Joe’s, she explained. I understand the argument perfectly when it comes to paper towels, toilet paper, and lightbulbs, but it didn’t explain what looked to me like a lifetime supply of chocolate sauce. The reason for that, she said dismissively as if I were missing the whole point, was that she bought more after forgetting she’d already stockpiled a goodly amount a few months earlier.

Consider the types, though. One is focused on what’s past, the other on the future. So we came to see the basement as being divided between my urgent desire for historical preservation and, well, her grand vision. Or to put it another way, between my junk and her supplies. (“Not my supplies,” she would say, “our supplies,” since I too would use the stocks, including, naturally, the chocolate sauce.)

We agreed we needed to address it, but because it was out of sight we just let it grow. To an outsider, it might have seemed as if we were nurturing an indoor junkyard.

Then I got into a conversation with Richard Lyntton, who had a business to help people deal with their clutter. Lyntton developed his thinking during five years of sharing space with fellow soldiers in the Royal Tank Regiment. “When you’re in such a confined space, it forces you to consider what you truly need,” he told me.

Lyntton sees clutter as more than a matter of just, well, matter. “Most people think of it purely on a physical level,” he said, “but clearing physical clutter is a good place to start clearing your whole mental and spiritual deck. What matters ultimately isn’t the thing itself but that you have a feeling of peace.”

As far as my historical preservation project was concerned, he suggested loading a rented truck and dropping it all at a local thrift store. “Just get rid of it,” he said. “It’s all dead energy. You’ll feel great once it’s gone.”

And so I determined to address the mess. Taking Lyntton’s advice not to procrastinate, I went to the basement without so much as a pit stop at the fridge.

I went down deep. Real deep.

Photo By Hugh Kretschmer.

There were photos, letters from an old girlfriend, schoolwork, and stories and diaries that I felt vaguely embarrassed to read now, as if I were sneaking a peak at someone else’s private life. Other objects, too, cued remembrance of things past, and the experience of poring through the stuff seemed to telescope events, making them appear closer than they had been in years. An old typewriter took me back to my first ambitious—if grandiose—days of writing, blazing away in the basement of my parents’ house.

The act of disposing became by turns emotional, sentimental, and then, finally, cathartic.

Lyntton was right that all the stuff wasn’t just stuff, but it wasn’t “dead” at all. It was a record. Events and relationships had run a course with a beginning, middle, and end. People had married, borne children, divorced, and died.

“If I knew things would no longer be,” says the narrator at the end of the Barry Levinson film Avalon, “I would have tried to remember better.”

I scored my vanity a few times, too, with photos that were like time-lapse shots for a PowerPoint presentation on aging. Which pushed me toward another thought: Where have all the years—my years—gone?

The fear of the future, the unknown, is common enough, but what spurred my fear of the future was how quickly the past had passed. Childhood passes under the pressure of anticipation, slowly while it’s in progress, but as a parent, at least for me, the years have seemed to float up and burst like bubbles. The past was contained in finite objects, and they reminded me of the finitude of time.

Of course, there’s a practical side to it all, too. If the objects help you remember and, so, give a certain shape to your life, they have a totally opposite impact on your digs. They accumulate, time stuffed into a space. A brave few pay $100 an hour to get walked and talked through the process of divesting. Some people are forced to deal with it at certain times, such as when they move or when the spirit moves them, but it’s inevitably left to the people who bury the dead to toss out their junk as well—and to wonder why the heck anyone would keep thus-and-such.

My afternoon of purging passed quickly. The garage filled with stuff that I vowed I would soon take away to the thrift shop or the dump. My wife came home. “Wow,” she said, “you really did some job. You look tired.”
“I feel all cleaned out,” I said.

She surveyed the basement, the cause if not the scene of a few battles. Enough space had been reclaimed that we could find a meeting place somewhere in the middle of the room to start armistice talks. She considered the open space.

“I’d say it looks like we’re about halfway there,” she said.

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

Conquer Clutter The Saturday Evening Post