Getting Rid of Clutter and Organizing Your Home

I am reading the book “Clutter Clearing Choices,” written by Barbara Tako. This book was sent to me to review and keep, and to also do a giveaway. I am having a little trouble with reading this book. Usually, I can read a book quickly. This time, it is taking me a longer.

Why? Because I keep getting inspired to get up and attack clutter in my house. I am a pack rat. I admit it. I hate to throw anything away. This has lead to an accumulation of stuff everywhere. On the kitchen counter, my kitchen table, the living room, bedrooms and, of course, my closets. My biggest problem is that I don’t have a system in place to take care of clutter.

I am always picking up after everyone in my family, and I am tired of it. This has lead to me giving up and letting things just pile up. The first time I sat down to read this book, I read two chapters (the chapters are short, 2 - 4 pages long) and had to put the book down. Off I would go to take some advice given in the book. Here is one of my favorites:

“Start small: Do one drawer or shelf at a time.”

That’s the one that got me motivated to tackle my clutter problem. In the past, I would handle my clutter by tackling a whole room at one time. This was very exhausting. I hated doing it. Afterwards, I would feel good, until a few days would go by and the clutter would start stacking up again. I had no system in place to organize things. It’s great to have my counter cleared off, but it didn’t solve the problem of keeping it that way.

My first clutter and organize task I assigned myself was my kitchen counter. It’s a small space that collects receipts, mail, and other miscellaneous stuff. It took me about 5 minutes to get it cleared off. It wasn’t until the next day that I was able to solve my problem with having an organized way to keep it cleared off.

After reading a few more chapters, I was ready to tackle a problem area in my bedroom. My dresser and the floor in front of my dresser. It was during this task that I found an organizer gathering dust on the floor. I also found an empty container that would be perfect on my counter. The organizer is a small mail/paper/messenger separator, the kind you use in an office. I placed it on the counter to sort appointment cards, important mail, coupons and receipts. I placed the large container on the counter to hold big items, like batteries, that I wanted to keep out where I could get to easily.

The next thing I did was to tell my husband that, for now on, junk mail goes in the trash, not on the counter. Hopefully, this will help. Two days later, and my counter still looks good. I will be doing a full review and a giveaway for this book on February 14. Hopefully, I will be able to complete the book by then. In the meantime, if you have any questions about how to tackle clutter in your home or how to organize a problem area, leave the question in a comment. I will get with the author of the book for answers.