Clear Clutter Now: Practical and Tactical Tips to Get It Done! (Pt. 3 of 3)

See it: Your space entirely clear and organized! Everything you need is accessible. Whatever was not needed is gone. Your room is refreshing, rejuvenating and stress-free!

You are about to make the vision a reality. Prepare yourself mentally. Don’t think you have to finish it in one day.

Clearing clutter and getting organized is not an overnight endeavor.

If you’ve seen TV shows that tackle clutter, you may already have a clue as to how much work it actually takes to straighten out a cluttered place.

Extreme cases could require an army of a dozen troops over several days just to clear and clean two large rooms of an ordinary-sized house.

Please don’t be discouraged by the example. Let it motivate and empower you to start as soon as possible. Get going and watch your results. Progress is self-motivating!

If you’ve been with us for Parts 1 and 2 of this Organization – No Stress series, you understand the different ways disorganization causes stress.

You also have used our checklists to assess your present organization skill level and to come to terms with any common excuses for being disorganized.

In addition, you’ve learned a few tips on how to customize your re-organization to fit your personal needs.

Today we are going to dive in and tackle head-on the tactical organizing tips to clear clutter. You are prepared to get going and fully complete your project. Just follow the steps.

The following techniques result from years of gleaning expert advice, practicing and streamlining it. Start applying these organizing procedures to clear clutter both at work and at home. As a result, you will develop a healthier environment both mentally and physically.

Best Practices for Finally Getting Organized

Getting organized can be extremely exciting or frustrating because you’re faced with a gargantuan pile of tasks. However, you also foresee a most tantalizing reward: to finally be able to live and work in a space with little or no clutter. Follow these three Best Practices and six tactical organizing tips to clear clutter, and watch the entire enterprise proceed with success.

#1 Get Serious and Commit Yourself to Clear the Clutter

Yes, it’s true: The first step, getting serious about clutter, can be the most challenging hurdle.

Some people suffering from stress-related problems get off to an ambiguous start. They don’t really believe they can bring order to chaos and view it as kind of a useless endeavor.

I have known people who thought stress management was just a whimsical oxymoron, a humorous turn of words on an impossible problem. In their view, stress was just something people live and die with and never question.

If you happen to have a similar mindset about getting organized — well, you’d better get serious about the task. A half-hearted attempt will not free you of clutter stress. It’s a job that you must make a commitment to yourself. If you struggle with this, then  . . .

Recall your personal Organization Level score and your Excuses checkup from Part 1 of our series. Check back.

Recall the chronic clutter stress effects and your motivational techniques from Part 2 of our series. Check back.

Here’s another cool trick: Get angry at the problem: “I’m not going to take it anymore!”

Surprisingly, a very effective attitude to motivate yourself is to get really angry at the disorganization in your living or work spaces.

If you start viewing clutter as the enemy or, at the very least, an overstaying guest in your living space or office, you will begin to take clutter very seriously. You won’t allow the old excuses and rationalizations. This is a secret motivational trick to make you more conscientious in achieving your cleanup goal.

#2 Create Your Clutter Map

Often, people give up because they view all the clutter as a monolithic and immovable mass, like a mountain!

A Clutter Map is your solution to that obstacle. This is one of the most effective organizing tips to clear clutter.

Your Clutter Map is the blueprint for your conquest! You are going to conquer clutter.

You are going to annihilate clutter stress in your life.

Okay, we’re being dramatic. Regard your Clutter Map as a personalized roadmap.

You have to create a Clutter Map with details of the spaces that you want to organize and clean up so the task will not overwhelm you. A plan always makes a project easier to implement.

This can be a little drawing of your office spaces or a page devoted to each room in your home. You just sketch out the areas that require organization and add details as you see fit.

Your map will enable you to accomplish two more things:

First, chunk it down (Jack Canfield, The Success Principles) into a series of manageable cleanups.

A big goal is a series of small, achievable tasks. Break it down on your map and then take action on one space or portion at a time. This is the way to achieve any big goal.

Second, define measurable, achievable goals

It is important to set and strive for specific goals, whether they be small achievements or milestones. Goals motivate you! They become the proof of your progress: Decluttering is working. Your work is paying off!

#3 Start Right Now!

Mark Twain offered some of these age-old, tried and true approaches:

“Start Right Now” may sound a bit harsh. But then, if not now, when? There’s no better time to get organized than the present.

If you worked through Parts 1 and 2 of this series, then you have everything you need now:

the right mindset, self-awareness, and strategies to proceed and succeed.

A few more tactical tips in this post, and you’ll be on your way to freedom from clutter stress.

Do not procrastinate!

Here’s how you Start Right Now: As soon as you leave your chair, couch or bed, start clearing away the clutter nearest to you. If you don’t yet have a Clutter Map, that’s okay. You can make one after you spend a few minutes organizing.

This is one of the most important organizing tips to clear clutter. Once you adopt the right mindset to accomplish something, there’s little that can stop you.

Get into the rhythm of taking action toward your goal.

It doesn’t matter if you can clear only one table or cabinet at a time. The important thing is that you have started something. You can immediately see some measure of improvement!

What a great feeling when you get into the swing of working toward your goal! You know now that these small acts of organizing are part of your overall success.

Achieving is self-rewarding. Small tasks are achievable. Frequent achievements and self-rewards are encouraging and inspirational. This in itself is a de-stressor.

#4 Dig In and Dig Out 

Don’t be afraid to deep dive into clutter.

Clearing can become frustrating and anxiety producing. As you delve into the piles of stuff, just figure you’re fighting from the trenches. You’re doing battle against present and future clutter.

Along the way, you’ll need to make strategic decisions: where to put things, what to toss.

So, we have a few more tactical tips to fortify you on the frontline and keep you moving forward.

Tactical Organizing Tips to Clear Clutter

Getting it DoneSource

Tactical Tip 1: Create Categories

This tip applies especially to paper organization, in your workplace and home.

Depending on your work, most of your files are likely to be in your computer. There are several online systems for organization, storage, and retrieval of your electronic files. We discuss this further in our FREE eBook, Stress Relief. You might like to access an instant download here.

However, if you are clearing clutter stress from your office, then you have papers. As you sort through papers, categories will reveal themselves. Pile the papers you need in their respective categories.

Every paper goes into a category file or file box with a label. This includes mail, which can accumulate very quickly. The labels should be uniform. All others surrender to the Throwaway or Recycle pile.

Color-coding is very one of the easiest and most effective organizing tips to clear clutter. It affords you quick and easy access to categories you designate.

You can use an array of colored file folders or just highlight the file labels with colored markers.

Now your valuable materials are neat and accessible. Your office is presentable to co-workers and visitors. And, if you read Part 2 of this series, you know that your subconscious is greatly relieved.

Tactical Tip 2: Two Major Categories

Don’t know how to start? Think like Socrates – – –

Keep it simple. People often start with two major piles when de-cluttering their home or office: a KEEP pile and a THROWAWAY / RECYCLE pile.

Then re-check your KEEP pile for any more stuff you can discard.

In fact, thin it out a few times to make sure you’re not hanging on to bits and pieces of useless stuff, like broken or dated electronic accessories.

 * * * For every item you toss, you’re that much freer * * *

Tactical Tip 3: Three Ways to Say Good-Bye

Can’t think of a good use for something? Choose any of these three major categories:

Recycle or Throw it away!

Sell it!

Donate it!

You’ll find many opportunities to recycle, sell, or donate in your community and online.

This a milestone and most gratifying of the steps to clearing the clutter. You likely will have considerably more space when you complete this step.

Tactical Tip 4: Final Farewell, Adiós, Sayonara!

Once you decide to throw away something, forget it and move on!

 

If you keep reviewing your THROWAWAY pile, you will be sucked into an emotional and physical wasteland. Don’t waste your time or drain your brain. Let it go and move on.

Tip 5: On the Fence? Check Three Months Hence!

You might be on the fence about some items. Perhaps you’ll think, “I might need this someday.” If you have a reasonable suspicion that you simply should not discard something at this time, then here’s what to do.

Put the item in a box. Label the box with the date that is exactly three months forward. After three months, if you haven’t so much as touched the item, then throw it away! You’re not likely to miss it!

Tactical Tip 6: A Little Help from Your Friends

Create a small support network, so you can call someone if the cleanup enterprise gets too intense or burdensome.

Do you have a friend or relative who will be understanding, yet will hold you accountable and help you stay on task?

If you can garner this kind of support, then the whole project can be more fun.

The Takeaway:

Look forward: As you follow these organizing procedures to clear clutter and disorganization, keep looking forward, not back. Every item you discard is granting you a measure of freedom. It is opening the way to a lighter load and less stress.

Maintain: Keep on hand these organizing tips to clear clutter. Make a habit of using them as new mail, paper, and extraneous items come your way. A daily habit of clearing and a weekly checkup should keep you in good shape.

Clutter stress free at last: Soon you will find that your organized space is reflecting an organized mind!

Comments?

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