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How Do You Declutter?

Tsh — Thu, 08 May 2008 09:46:21 +0000

There are two schools of thought when it comes to decluttering:

Touch everything only once, and
Declutter in steps, moving piles around until it’s done.

When you touch everything only once, you pick up an item and put it in its rightful place immediately, even if it means going to the other side of the house. Sometimes you can maximize the effectiveness of this method and pick up several items going to the same room, using a basket to take your goods with you. Then you stay in that one room, reshelving everything you brought, and when you’re done, you return to the room you started in and continue on your work.

When you declutter in steps, you essentially make piles. If your dining room table is cleared off, you pile everything together that’s going to your daughter’s room, then the bathroom, and so on and so forth. When all the declutter has been transferred to their appropriate piles, you focus on shrinking the piles until they’re gone. When there are no more piles, your place has been decluttered.

Most home organizing “experts” advocate the Touch Everything Only Once method, but it doesn’t work for me. I get too distracted. If I crate up just a few items for my bedroom, before I know it, I’m perusing the magazine on my nightstand, or I’m organizing the shirts in my wardrobe by sleeve length and color (I’m a bit sick that way – ask my husband or my college roommate). The original room I started in has long been forgotten.

My method is to stay in the messy room and pile its misplaced belongings in one central location, then move on to the next room and add to those original piles. After I’ve gone through the whole house and decluttered, I should have only one big pile for each room. Now all I have to do is empty a pile at a time until it’s gone.

What do you do? Have you even thought about it before? Just wondering if I’m in the minority or the majority here.

I’m off to make some piles.

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How Do You Declutter? is a post from Simple Mom

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Getting a Grip on Email Chaos

Tsh — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:00:38 +0000

It’s been almost one week since I stared my email inefficiency in the face, and I have to say, I’m already doing better. Here are some of my thoughts since I devised a new plan:

Photo by Coco Sunday

• Problem #1: My husband and I share one particular e-mail account (it’s work related), and we were always back-tracking and marking emails as “unread” when we knew the other person needing to see one. Very annoying. Solution: I’ve now redirected said email account to my Gmail account. I delete any emails for him because I know he’ll see them in iMail (the mail client he’s still using); he deletes any emails for me on his iMail. We just take care of our own emails. So far, this system works fairly well.

• Problem #2: I would check iMail anytime I heard it “ding,” telling me I had received a new message. It would distract me from whatever I was doing. Solution: I am forcing myself to close Gmail whenever I’m done using it, so my email isn’t up at all. It’s helping me curb distraction when I’m focused on something else, and I’m actually better at managing my email time, knowing I’ll close the window when I’m done.

• Problem #3: I’d read emails, then wait until I had more time to reply to them. This resulted in a backlog of too many emails to ever have time for responding. An in-box full of emails needing a response is not a pretty thing. Solution: I only read emails when I can give them at least a five sentence response. If I don’t have time for that, I leave it unread. If it seems urgent, then I’ll close out what I was working on and give that email my full attention. If it’s not urgent, then it can wait. The world won’t stop.

Initial Observations - It’s much harder to close out my Gmail account than I thought it would be. I don’t really consider myself an email addict, yet it was difficult to not just leave it up in case something “important” landed in my in-box. That was surprising to me. I’m also pleasantly surprised at how freeing it is to see an empty in-box. Before, I didn’t think it was a big deal to leave emails in my in-box, but it just got overwhelming to see all those conversations vying for my attention. No longer.

I’m going to closely monitor my email habits for one more week, and then I’ll switch my focused attention on a new habit on my list – while still keeping up with my new email system, of course.

CURRENT SPONSORS:

Plan to Eat - meal planning made simple.
The Justice Conference - Justice hangs by a thread.
Lil' Soak - Sewing hope with handmade goods.
Treed - A simple, flexible, effective project planning tool.

Getting a Grip on Email Chaos is a post from Simple Mom

Slaying the E-mail Inbox Dragon

Tsh — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 06:02:39 +0000

I admit it – I have let my e-mail inbox get the best of me. I like minimalism and simplicity, and yet I do not delete e-mails for some reason unbeknownst to me. Maybe I fear as soon as I delete it, I’ll need it. Maybe I think one day I’ll want to re-read certain e-mails, just for one. Why I think I’d do that (or have time for that) is beyond me – I must think that during late night nursing sessions.

Photo by Glynnish

I’m incredibly visual, so keeping something clean, simple, and clear calms me. Simply not seeing tons of text and requests to talk to me reduces my stress level.

So my current goal towards simplicity is really pretty basic: clear out my e-mail inbox, reply to e-mails that need a response, and come up with a system that keeps this from happening again.

I’m hoping that by keeping an online list, I’ll better reach my goal.

This guest post by Leo Babauta on ProBlogger has a great outline on what might work for me.

Though I’m more of an e-mail avoider than an e-mail addict, this article makes some great points for me as well.

They say it takes 21 days of consistently doing something to morph into a habit. I’d like to see if it’s true.

How about you? Have you found an e-mail system that works for you?

CURRENT SPONSORS:

Plan to Eat - meal planning made simple.
The Justice Conference - Justice hangs by a thread.
Lil' Soak - Sewing hope with handmade goods.
Treed - A simple, flexible, effective project planning tool.

Slaying the E-mail Inbox Dragon is a post from Simple Mom