Declutter Your Home in 11 Easy Steps    By Maria Gracia   of Get Organized Now!

Feeling overwhelmed at the thought of organizing your home? It sounds like a big job. However, if you start on a smaller scale, it will be a whole lot easier. For example, instead of starting with the entire house, commit to starting with one room.

Once you realize that you have stuff you no longer need or want, you've taken a giant step in the right direction. That fact alone will make the task easier.

Follow these 11 steps, and you’re well on your way to an organized home:

1) Decide on what room to start on. Write it at the top of an 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheet of paper. This will be your Action Sheet.
Example: BEDROOM A

2) Designate an appropriate reward to give yourself on the Dumping portion of the job. The reward concept serves as your motivation, so be sure to choose something that you’d really enjoy! Write this reward on your Action Sheet.
Example: Treat yourself to a massage or go out for a nice dinner -- whatever it is that you love to do. Write it on your Action Sheet.

3) Set a specific Dumping Completion Deadline for this one room. Write it on your Action Sheet.
Example: DUMPING DEADLINE: APRIL 30

4) Schedule 3 specific dumping dates (one hour for each). Hopefully this will be enough to complete the dumping portion of the job. Write it on your Action Sheet. Then, post the Action Sheet in a prominent place where you are certain to see it every day, like your bathroom mirror. It will serve as a reminder of your goal, deadline and pending reward.
Example: DUMPING DATES: APRIL 18 from 8-9A, APRIL 21 from 8-9A, APRIL 24 from 8-9A

5) When the 1st dumping day arrives, keep that appointment, just as you would any other important appointment. Bring a bunch of large garbage bags. Play your favorite music in the background.

6) Set a timer for 1 Hour -- one that sounds off when the hour is up.

7) Pick up one item at a time, and start dumping. (If you come across items you want to give to charity, designate a special bag for those items) Whatever you are going to keep, just put to one side of the room.

8) Continue doing this until the timer goes off. If you prefer to continue, keep going. Otherwise, stop and follow the same procedures for your next two scheduled dates. Don’t let the garbage bags sit there. Make sure they are thrown out now (or donated), or on Garbage Day at the latest.

9) Once you’ve managed to dump everything you don’t want or need in that one room, it’s time to celebrate. Take advantage of that reward you designated.

10) Now that everything in that room that you wanted dumped is gone, you’re ready to begin putting everything you are keeping back in an organized manner. Be very careful not to put anything else in this room that you don’t want.

11) Repeat this process for each of the other rooms in your house.

About the Author

Maria Gracia is President of Get Organized Now!.

Specializing in peak time and space management, she has over 12 years of organizational experience. Her broad range of skills covers planning, scheduling, peak productivity, records management, space planning, time and paper management, administrative services and computer oriented organizational systems.

Maria is the author of the book titled Finally Organized, Finally Free. In addition, she has written and published, T.A.S.O., the art of Time And Space Organization Newsletter, Better Business and a number of other informational products. Her works are enjoyed by individual consumers, small businesses and large companies such as the Walt Disney Company, Dell Computer Corporation, Microsoft Corporation and Metropolitan Life.

Maria provides solutions to help you organize your business, personal, home and family life with ease -- one solution at a time. You can contact her via e-mail : getorgnow@aol.com


Copyright © 1999 Get Organized Now.  All Rights Reserved. Re-Printed with permission.

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