I often get asked this question: What do I do if the place where I would look for an item first is full? What if I take it there now, and that place where I take it is stuffed? These questions have been answered in many places throughout the blog, podcast and videos I’ve made over the years. The links below will help!
Blog Posts
The simple answer is, “When you take something to the first place where you’d look for it and there isn’t room. You make room by removing something easy. These blog posts give real life examples of how I have done this, and you can too!
How NOT to get Distracted from a Decluttering Project by Other Decluttering Projects
The One In One Out Rule the Used to Boggle My Mind
Podcast Episodes:
183: Decluttering the Whole Messy House Podcast
358: Applying the Decluttering Process to Any Situation, Eve the Ones that Seem Too Different
Video:
Live Q&A Videos:
You’ll find the question answered at timestamps listed next to the video link.
Decluttering and Home Routines: Q&A (at 36:31)
and THIS Live QA (timestamp 23:16)
and THIS ONE (timestamp 48:45)
From My Audiobook Series:
Tortoise and Hare Decluttering: The Whats, Whys, and Hows of Every Angle of Decluttering is a short audio book (available on Amazon) which dives into common decluttering struggles such as:
- resisting my “Take It There Now” strategy
- having a “project mentality” when it comes to decluttering
- creating more clutter while decluttering
Additional Resources:
5 Step No Mess Decluttering Video Course
If the area is full and nothing is easy to remove – which is practically ALWAYS the case for me – I just put the item as close as possible to where it should be and go back to whatever I’m working on. When I’m ready to tackle the overstuffed place, I will consider the items I placed near the spot with all the other items there. I like Dana’s advice about most things – but this is one area where I have to do it differently.
I have found that the times I remember most is when the area was one where I have a lot of feelings (books for instance) — in which case I just did as Penny says above and stuck the item as close as possible to deal with later. But as I kept working with this rule I have been able to other times easily grab something else I didn’t care about and move on. This definitely was one of the hardest parts to start with — but I just kept doing the best I could until it started getting easier with practice (and easier as some of the areas got clearer as well of course).