Ltd., said that the one-touch rule involves handling an item only once. “Rather than picking something up and setting it down temporarily, you place it immediately in its designated spot. This habit minimises clutter, and helps maintain organisation, and prevents items from piling up,” he said.
🎉 💡 How to Use the 5-Second Rule: ✔️ Pick an area to declutter (closet, kitchen, drawers—anywhere!) ✔️ Pick up one item at a time. ✔️ Decide in 5 seconds: Keep, Donate, or Trash.
Start small and simplify. Beginning the decluttering process by starting small and focusing on one area at a time can be a highly effective strategy to prevent overwhelm, maintain motivation, and achieve tangible progress in organizing your living space.
“No decorative object smaller than a cantaloupe.” Oklahoma City designer Valerie Helgeson recommends giving your pieces elbow room. “This creates negative space, which is actually a positive,” she said. “It gives the eye and mind a break.”
This by-the-numbers decluttering strategy is simple: Only take up 80% of any given space in your home with stuff, and leave the other 20% empty. Generally, that means getting rid of about 20% of the items in your house to ensure your home is comfortable and has a feeling of spaciousness.
1. Take the 12-12-12 challenge. The rules are simple: locate 12 items to throw away, 12 to donate, and 12 to be returned to their proper home. That's it.
The idea behind Project 333 is simple: Wear only 33 articles of clothing for the next 3 months. All clothing, accessories, jewelry, outerwear, and shoes count towards your number. Exceptions include wedding rings, underwear, sleepwear, in-home loungewear, and workout clothing.
Coined by pro organizer Kayleen Kelly, the “Core 4 Method” breaks the decluttering process into four simple steps: clear out, categorize, cut out, and contain. In essence, it's designed to take the stress and overwhelm out of the organizing process.
The 333 Rule for Clothes (Project 333): This popular minimalist challenge involves selecting 33 items of clothing (excluding essentials like underwear, sleepwear, and workout gear) and wearing only those items for three consecutive months.
The five-year decluttering rule says that if you haven't used an item in five years, you probably don't need to keep it in your home. While this rule may not work for keepsakes, like your grandmother's wedding china, it is a great rule to use for decluttering your closet.
Cleaning your home or surroundings isn't just a physical process, but a mental one as well. Reducing clutter minimizes distractions, allowing your brain to concentrate on more important tasks at hand.
What Is the 90/90 Rule? Here's the gist: When you come upon an object you're unsure about decluttering, ask yourself two questions: Did you use it in the past 90 days? If not, will you use it in the next 90 days? If your answer is “no” to both questions, away it goes.
Focus on one room or even one section within a room (e.g., kitchen cabinets), and complete that area thoroughly before moving on to the next space. Keep reading to learn helpful methods to declutter your home room by room.
Decluttering gives us higher self-esteem and makes us happy. Having trouble staying organised results in feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. Seeing the disarray of things bombards our minds with excessive stimuli and causes our senses to be overwhelmed. It distracts us from our tasks causing us to procrastinate.
With OHIO, you can use a method that makes it easier to tackle existing piles or handle incoming papers. The idea: You commit to handling each item only once. As you open a letter or pick up a document from your pile, you make an immediate decision: file it, act on it, delegate it, or discard it.
Be ruthless by picking out just a few items to keep that are your most favorite, and consider parting with the rest. Give yourself grace as you go through sentimental items. You won't be able to do it all at once, and it may take several sessions to decide which difficult items to keep or let go.
Clutter can affect our anxiety levels, sleep, and ability to focus. It can also make us less productive, triggering coping and avoidance strategies that make us more likely to snack on junk and watch TV shows (including ones about other people decluttering their lives).
The 333 method is essentially a bite-sized version of a capsule wardrobe. You choose three tops, three bottoms, and three shoes, and challenge yourself to create as many outfit combinations as possible with your selections.
A: The 5-year rule for decluttering is simple: Look at your stuff and ask yourself, "Have I used this in the last five years?" If the answer is no, it's probably time to let it go — unless it's something with major sentimental value, of course.