Werth-It Fundraising Blog

Clutter.  Who doesn’t have to deal with it?  I’m teaching a class at the Nonprofit Support Center on Getting Organized, and rather than make my students take a five-page handout (adding to their clutter!), I’m going to suggest that they access the information here on my blog.  Here it is:

50+ Ways to Cut Clutter by Katherine Wertheim

1)      Different kinds of clutter have different meanings.  For example, if you have too many newspapers around, you may believe that somewhere in those newspapers is “the Answer” and that you have to remember what’s in there.  The way to deal with this is to recognize that everything you might need to know is on the internet, and you can read the newspaper there.  Stop your subscription cold turkey, and read the newspaper online.

2)      If one kind of object is scattered around your house – like clothing is all over, or books are all over – it means that you see each object as unique.  Work on “putting like with like” – put all the books on a bookshelf or put all the clothing in the closet.

3)      There are essentially two ways of getting rid of clutter.  You can go through it slowly or you can get rid of it all at once.  Generally, getting rid of it all at once just means that you accumulate more.  Going through it slowly will take time, but you’re more likely to not re-accumulate it.

4)      Consider that you might have a recognized disorder.  Sometimes people with ADD have difficulty with disorganization.  Check with a medical professional – medication may help.

5)      Dr. Randy Frost (www.ocfoundation.org) says that disorganization may be a deficit in decision-making in the frontal lobe of the brain.  It makes it difficult for the person to determine what is important and what isn’t.  He was working on medications to see if they would help: try looking up his research.

6)      There are about four things you can do with any item: File it, act on it, Recycle or Refer it (give it away or hand it off to someone else), or put it in the Trash.  You can remember this by the acronym FART.

7)      You can change any habit – either end a bad one or start a new one – in about three weeks.  That means that in three years, you can change or establish 52 habits.  Start with any habit you want to change, and keep track of doing it for 21 days.  For example, let’s say that you’re always losing your keys.  Set aside one place for your keys – perhaps a bowl by your door or a hook next to it – and for three weeks, make sure to put your keys in that one place.  After three weeks, it will be a habit, and you’ll keep doing it.  Read “Psycho-Cybernetics” by Dr. Maxwell Maltz for more details.

    My mother used to ask, “What are you preserving that for, posterity?”  If there’s not a reason to keep something (like tax records), then give it away, sell it, donate it, recycle it, or throw it away. 

9)      Ask yourself, “Would Goodwill take this as a donation?”  If something is too crummy to donate, it’s too crummy to use.  Throw away anything you couldn’t donate: like old shoes, stained clothing, or ripped underwear.

10)   Try dedicating a period of time each day or each week to decluttering.  You can choose to dedicate thirty minutes a day, or 200 minutes a week, for example.  I like weekly goals, so if you miss a day, you can make it up later.   You can keep track of the time on a monthly wall calendar.

11)   Try decluttering for just one month and then stop.  Even though you may not be finished, you need some time to adjust to the less-cluttered environment.  Also, knowing that you’re just decluttering for one month makes it easier to keep at it.  Then you can maintain your clearer environment for a month, and when you’re used to it, start the process again: one month on, one month off.

12)   Engage a friend in your process.  If you know someone who also struggles, enlist their help.  You can be buddies for each other, calling up before you donate something to charity, or keeping each other to your commitments.

13)   Look around for a decluttering group, based on the AA program.  There are Clutterers Anonymous groups, and if there isn’t one nearby, start one.

14)   If you want to work on other goals besides decluttering, look into starting or joining a Mastermind group.  You meet at regular times and share your goals, successes and struggles.  Just knowing that you promised other people that you would get something done makes it more likely that you will.

15)   If you need help cleaning, try reading, “Speed Cleaning” by Jeff Campbell.  He promises to cut your time spent on cleaning in half.

16)   If you are overwhelmed by clutter, try www.flylady.com.  She recommends that you start by cleaning your sink, and then go from there.  She’s the one who developed the expression “CHAOS” for “Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome.”  She takes each room, week by week, and talks you through getting everything done.

17)   Use technology to help you.  For instance, if you have a lot of papers and are afraid to get rid of them, then scan them and upload them online.  There are websites that will store all of your information for you, and you can name and sort each document.  You can access them from anywhere in the world, anytime, even if there’s a disaster, you’re traveling, or your computer crashes, and even if technology changes.  If you’re worried about privacy, you can also scan everything and then put it on CDs, and put the CDs into a fireproof safe.  That way, your documents are safe in case of fire or earthquake.  You can get a scanner for about $200-$300, and get rid of all your papers in a few weeks.

18)   Scan your photos and put them online, too.  They can never be lost.

19)   Hire someone.  At some point, if you’re really chronically disorganized, there are people who can help you.  Check with NAPO – the National Association of Professional Organizers – to find someone who can help.

20)   If you’re just not able to keep up with cleaning, it’s time to call a maid service.  There are people who do this for a living, and you can help them stay employed.

21)   To get organized and to learn how to prioritize what you want, try taking a one-day class through Franklin Covey (www.franklincovey.com).  They have a one-day course called “First Things First.”  It can change your life.

22)   If you don’t want to take the Franklin Covey course, I recommend Stephen Covey’s Book, “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.”

23)   If your office desk is a mess, come in on a weekend and clean it up.  You already know you don’t have the time to do it during the week or you would have.  Start with one item: pick it up and decide whether you will File it, Act on it, Recycle or Refer it, or Trash it.  (FART)

24)   Try the one-minute Japanese Kaizen method.  Take something that you would like to do, and do it for just one minute.  This works whether it’s cleaning, exercising or writing your great American novel. 

25)   Don’t aim for perfection, aim for about 80%.  The old 80/20 rule is that you can get about 80% of results with 20% of effort, and the last 20% take 80% of your effort.  So just put in 20% and get to 80% and be happy with that.  Perfection belongs to God, you are a mere mortal.

26)   If you’re feeling anxious about throwing things away, pick up one thing and really feel your anxiety.  Think about everything that worries you, like “What if I need it later?” or “It’s wasteful to throw something away.”  Rate your feelings on a scale of one to ten.  Then actually throw it away, and rate your feelings again.  You may find that what felt like an eight beforehand feels like a two afterward.  Repeat.

27)   Don’t bring it in the house.  For example, you can have most direct mailings (i.e. “junk mail”) stopped.  Write the Direct Marketing Association.  www.dmachoice.org.  It will help you stop junk email, too.

28)   There are an extra 30 days in the year if you care to use them: there are 11 federal holidays, you probably get two weeks of vacation, and you can spare a few Sundays here and there.  What if you dedicated these days to cleaning?  At eight hours a day, that would be 240 hours of cleaning in the course of a year.  Chances are that you can tackle any problem you have in these 30 days.

29)   Try cleaning first thing in the morning.  Even if you’re a night owl (I am), you might find that first thing in the morning is more productive for you (I do).

30)   Set a goal that is RIDICULOUSLY far in advance.  Not “I’ll get it all clean by Tuesday” but “I’ll get it done by” your birthday or Christmas, whichever is farther away.  Write it down in your calendar.  If it’s not done by then, hire someone to do it for you.

31)   If you’re really struggling to clean your place, try cleaning someone else’s place.  You can volunteer to help an elderly person clear out clutter through caregiver groups that help seniors.  Phone around until you find one.  Or volunteer to help a friend.  Once you see how someone holds on to things that you consider meaningless, it’s easier to throw out a couple of bags of stuff as soon as you come home.

32)   Put stuff in boxes and label it with the year.  Then put a second date on it that is three years from now.  When that date comes, throw it out without looking at it.  If you haven’t needed it in three years, you’re not going to.

33)   If it’s a cleaning emergency and you need to get stuff out of the way right now (your mother-in-law is visiting, your crush is stopping by, the landlord needs to fix something), then get nice white boxes from the office supply store and throw everything into them and stack them up against the walls.  No one needs to know what’s in them.

34)   Try the Elizabeth Hagen method (www.elizabethhagen.com): go from room to room and make two lists: one of everything that needs to be fixed, and one of everything that needs to be cleaned.  After you make the list, mark down with a star the one thing that is the worst in that room.  Do this for every room.  Then look at the starred items and pick the #1 star—what’s the worst thing in the whole place?  Work on that #1 star first, and then work on each of the starred items.  That will give you a start on what to do.

35)   Create a deadline for yourself, perhaps throwing a “My house is clean” party.  Send out the evites or invites well in advance, and ask your friends to come and help you celebrate.  Knowing that people are coming will force you to act.

36)   “You’re grounded!”  Remember when your parents would do this?  Well, you can “ground” yourself.  Make it that you can’t go out to anything fun until you cope with what’s wrong.  You’re just allowed home, work, the gym and the grocery store until you’ve tidied up, or done what you need to do, or if you have put in a certain amount of time into cleaning, like five hours.

37)   If you’re going to bring in something, you have to decide to get rid of something, called “One thing in, one thing out.”  If you are buying new shoes, for example, decide in advance what pair of shoes will get tossed, recycled or donated.

38)   Things from the organizer store will not organize you.  You have to use them.  It’s better, actually, to throw or give something away than to put it in a box and not use it.

39)   Get a set of labels and put today’s date on all your clothing.  As you use an item, take the label off.  At the end of 365 days, donate everything that you haven’t used.  Really, if you haven’t worn those pants in a year, you’re not going to.  If you keep saying, “I’ll wear it when I lose weight” then consider that if you do lose weight, you will get a chance to buy all new clothing and you won’t want to wear this old stuff.

40)   Use the set of labels and put today’s date on every appliance in your kitchen.  Give it away if you haven’t used it in one year.  Really, it’s charming that someone gave you a popcorn popper as a wedding gift, but if you only make microwave popcorn, then release the popper to someone who will use it and enjoy it.

41)   Your possessions don’t love you back.  You may love them, but they don’t love you.  If you have 1,000 books, then you are in a relationship with those books.  Is that what you want?

42)   Look up the Collyer Brothers.  They had so much clutter it killed them.

43)   If you have beloved possessions you inherited, please understand that your loved one is not in those possessions.  They have passed to a place where possessions are no longer important.  If it makes you feel bad to give something of theirs away, then take a picture of it and put it in a scrapbook, and you can look at it whenever you want.  If you’re not using it, give it to someone who will.

44)   Sit down with one person and tell them the meaning of the things you will give away.  You’ll find that it’s much easier to release it when you’ve told the story of it.

45)   Have a clothing give-away swap.  Everyone brings the clothing they want to give away.  They hold up each piece and talk about what it means to them.  Then anyone in the room can try it on and take it, and you can take the leftover clothing to a thrift store and let it be used by someone else who will cherish it.

46)   If you’re trying to help someone else with a clutter or hoarding problem, recognize that you’re probably the wrong person to do it.  A stranger would be better: hire someone from NAPO.

47)   If you haven’t gotten a storage locker, don’t start, and if you have, set a weekly goal to clean it out for a certain number of hours a week.  Before you start, make a list of the items that you would definitely want to keep, and make a list of all the items you remember are in the locker.  If you find something that wasn’t on your lists, you’ll know that it doesn’t matter enough to you to keep it.

48)   Write a list of every bad thing that is a result of your clutter or disorganization, including not being able to have people over, not starting or keeping relationships, not paying bills on time, wasting time looking for things, and anything else you can think of.  Look at this list and remind yourself of these penalties you pay; it will help you keep focused on getting rid of the clutter.

49)   Pay your bills online and automatically.  It will help you pay everything on time, and it can get rid of paper clutter if you choose the option of not receiving mailed bills.

50)   Get a post office box.  Only go to pick up your mail when you have time to deal with it immediately.

51)   Don’t worry that you “lack discipline.”  You are perfectly disciplined to your current habits.  You need to change those habits, to end the bad ones and embrace the good ones.  It is possible, and you can do it.

52)   Before you buy, visualize the place in your home for the object.  If there’s no place, don’t buy it until there’s space for it. 

53)   The Strategic Coach, www.strategiccoach.com says that you should focus on the things you’re excellent at, and hand off to someone else the things you don’t do well.  In which case, hire someone else to do this so you can focus on the things that make you money.

54)   You don’t need this piece of paper: all of this information has been posted on my blog at www.werth-it.com/blog.  Just go there and search on ‘Clutter’ and you can find this anytime in the future.

Good luck!

© Katherine Wertheim, www.werth-it.com, Katherine@werth-it.com

If you have questions about fundraising or just about getting organized, please write me, Katherine Wertheim, CFRE, at katherine@werth-it.com, or post a question in the comments section of my blog at www.werth-it.com/blog.