To Get Organized, Do The Easy Thing First

We have this idea, often subconsciously, that something is only worth doing if it’s hard or complicated. If something is too easy, it almost feels like cheating, and therefore we don’t want to do it.

Sound familiar?

That’s why it’s so hard for people struggling with large amounts of clutter to start working to reduce it. The first step is so easy, people can’t believe it could possibly work… and if it did work, would it be cheating and it somehow “wouldn’t count”?

We tie ourselves into absolute knots trying to find the very best solutions to our problems, when really the best steps to take are right there in front of us, and quicker and easier to implement that we could ever imagine.

I started working with a client who really struggled with clutter. She was a recently divorced mother of two little kids, which already puts the organizing difficulty level on high, and in her marriage her husband had been the one responsible for tidying and organizing. So she was dealing with this major loss, trying to be the best parent she could be, feeling totally out of her depth in terms of trying to manage a home, and also feeing horrifically guilty. I’m sure all of us can see a piece of ourselves in her situation!

Without any normative judgement attached, I would describe her home as significantly cluttered. In most of the rooms, there were no significant piles, but you also couldn’t really see the floor and needed to step carefully to avoid getting a Lego to the foot. This amount of clutter, though very difficult to live with for a lot of reasons, is quite common.

Her first question to me, of course, was “what should I buy?” The reason I say of course is that this is what most people want when they hire me. They want me to give them the magic bullet they somehow haven’t discovered yet that will change their lives.

Instead, I asked her to join me in the first, most important step in organizing a significantly cluttered space.

We grabbed trash bags, and started picking up any obvious trash.

I know, that’s it. That’s the step. Don’t overthink it! Look for receipts, food wrappers, clothing tags, junk mail, crafting scraps, takeout bags, that kind of thing. If it looks like trash, it probably is, and you need to bag it up and get it out of the space.

Why do we start here? Two reasons.

1) It’s simple and easy. When a task seems difficult, we’re unlikely to start. But if a task is straightforward and has very little ambiguity, we’re much more likely to take it on. This means we get a win right away, and we’re much more motivated to continue with succeeding, more complicated steps in the process.

2) It makes a big difference. Most spaces that are significantly cluttered actually have a lot of trash in them, but the people who live there have stopped noticing it. So if we look for the trash and remove it from the space, suddenly there will be a lot less stuff, and decluttering and organizing what remains will feel a lot less overwhelming.

All we did for that first organizing session was pick up trash. The client immediately felt a sense of accomplishment, and she was so motivated to continue that we switched to working virtually so that I could just check in with her along the way of her organizing process!

There’s so much shame attached to significant clutter. Don’t let the shame compound one more day. Grab a trash bag, set a timer for 30 minutes, and pick up any obvious trash you see. I promise, this super easy first step is NOT cheating, and it’s going to help you start your decluttering journey!

LMW