I often think my biggest barrier to tackling clutter is finding a home to put something. A friend of mine visited the other week. She had recently moved to a new place and ended up downsizing in the process. One of her top priorities was to find a place for everything. Even if this place was cumbersome and difficult to access, such as the cupboards above the refrigerator, she didn’t care. As long as the item was stored somewhere, a better “home” could be made later.
I’m in the process of getting ready for four window replacements. To prepare, we need to clear away everything near the windows. This is both to provide space for the workers and to protect things from getting dusty. This is particularly important for the basement window, which requires some extensive repairs. It’s been a lot of work finding, or making, temporary “homes” for things that normally live on the window sills, such as the house plants. It’s been doubly frustrating to create homes for things in the “to-do,” donate, or gift piles.
I once read an article about a clean up method comprising five buckets: trash, dishes, laundry, things with a place, and things without a place. In theory, this seems like a solid system, except for me the majority of clean up is things with a “cumbersome and difficult to access” place. This is likely why they weren’t in it. Sometimes I designated the place hurriedly and organically, resulting in a jumbled interior. The problem with these homes is that often space is available. However, everything is difficult to access and find because the organization is poor. The big challenge is finding time and energy to reorganize everything.
Often, I think this problem is both easier to solve and worse in the digital world. On a computer, or device, it’s incredibly easy to create a “home.” I can always create a folder, or a tag, or save it within some app. Many apps automatically create some kind of organization system for us. Yet, this can often result in an abundance of “homes,” many containing a single item. Poorly named folders and labels make it difficult to find anything later. Of course, purging doesn’t happen as routinely because it’s easy to get more space.
The first step is finding a home, even if it ends up being the garbage can.