One of the things I love about working with my organizing clients is joining them on the journey as they transform their spaces, habits, and thoughts about clutter, organizing, and life. I’m most often called to help when they are feeling stuck, overwhelmed, at a crossroads, or in the midst of a life transition. The common thread is that they deeply desire change. They might be unclear about how to get there or the steps needed for change to occur, but they want a shift. They want something different.

Clients often begin with a certain level of clutter overwhelm paired with a desire to make their environment feel positive and supportive. Clients tell me that clutter overload paralyzes their decision making abilities. When they see clutter, they shut down. One client explained that the clutter, especially surface clutter, becomes one giant pile of undistinguishable items that feel impossible to sort, edit or organize. The cluttered areas negate the peaceful, “happy place” feeling she’d like.

To help her transform the bedroom to that “happy place,” we focused on one surface at a time. We broke down the undistinguishable pile on the dresser top, removed all the items, and sorted them onto the bed into smaller categories, grouping like with like. Grouped piles make it easier to visually see and decide for example about those ten mascaras, five bottles of lotion or fifty hair ties. In addition to reducing decision fatigue and overwhelm, organizing the big pile into small groups allowed us to pair up missing items, determine how much was enough, remove things that belonged elsewhere, and let go of possessions that had served their purpose, but were no longer useful or appreciated.

We reviewed each category and item, one at a time. Each decision resulted in routing objects to one of these categories: discard, donate, recycle, give to a specific person, move elsewhere, or keep in the bedroom. Once the dresser surface was cleared, edited and organized, we addressed a few other surfaces. The edited piles were then moved to their destinations.

By the time we finished, the clutter was gone, her “happy place” was restored, and we were ready to tackle the next room.

How do you handle the cluttered areas in your life? I’d love to know your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

Matthew Hoffman, Artist

Are you ready to learn one of the best ways to facilitate letting go?

Parameters.

Set some boundaries or guidelines around your decision-making before you start the actual process of releasing things. Setting parameters in advance will allow you to move faster, decrease stress, and reduce decision fatigue.

Here's one way you might use this concept. Let’s say you have decades worth of health-related newsletters. Some you’ve read and others you haven’t. While you know there’s a lot of interesting information in those pages, the information isn’t current.

Instead of reading through every newsletter, you decide to activate a parameter. You choose that for any health newsletter over five years old, you'll recycle it immediately without looking through the pages. By setting this date parameter, you’ll save yourself hours of reading information that isn’t relevant. Instead, you can use your decision-making energy to make more important choices.

You can use the parameter concept for other areas, too. Let’s say your closet is overflowing. It’s a daily challenge to get dressed. There’s no space on the racks or shelves to move things around, so you can't see what’s there. You have an abundance of black pants and bulky sweaters, many of which you don't wear.

Instead of organizing the entire closet, you start with only those two categories. You opt to put some guidelines in place and decide that four pairs of black pants and six bulky sweaters are ‘enough.’ Now, it’s a matter of selecting your favorites. With your number parameters in place, letting go is more manageable.

It’s your turn to choose. Which parameters will make the letting go part of your organizing journey easier? Remember that the more parameters you establish in advance, the less decision fatigue you’ll experience, the faster you’ll reach your goals, and the less stress you’ll experience.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. What has your experience been with creating letting go parameters?