Clutter clearing is all about sorting through your belongings to decide what stays and what goes. In my Fast Track Clutter Clearing online course, I teach highly effective methods for doing this.

At the end of the process you are left with all the items you want to keep, and this is where the motto “A place for everything and everything in its place” comes in.

The simple fact is that life works better when you know where your things are. It’s very frustrating having to hunt for something you know you have and, conversely, very satisfying when your home runs like a well-oiled machine and you can find everything you want when you need it.

If you grew up in a home environment where your parents or caregivers kept their belongings in an organized way, it’s highly likely you will have learned this skill too. But many people miss out on this and it’s not something that’s taught in schools.

So, here’s a step-by-step guide for how to do this…

If You Are Moving Home, Clutter Clear First

Arriving in a new home presents many decisions that need to be made about how you will arrange your furniture and where you will put all your belongings. You can greatly reduce the number of decisions that need to be made by clutter clearing your old home before you move to your new one.

Using this method, the things you arrive with are the things you know you want to keep. This can save you substantial moving costs too.

Give Each Item You Own a Place Where It Lives

A part of your consciousness rests on the things that you own, so ordering your home brings about an inner ordering of yourself as well.

When moving into a new home, assign each item a place where it belongs. If you have been living in your current home for a while, it’s not too late to do this. Go into each room and make decisions about where everything lives, using the techniques I’m about to explain. Especially target any items you put somewhere “just for now”, and there they have stayed.

Perfectionists often like to keep things out in the open where they can see them, as a reminder to do something. But the visual clutter this creates is counterproductive, and the item soon gets lost among piles of other things anyway. A much better way is to put each object in its designated home and use a “To Do” book instead to help you keep track of the things you need to do.

Group Similar Types of Things Together

Grouping similar items makes it much easier to find something and much easier to put it away again when you have finished using it. Grouping things also has the advantage of immediately revealing how many of each type of item you have so that you are not tempted to buy more when you already have enough.

This works for most belongings, but there are some exceptions. To give a few examples, it’s not necessary to keep all your books together, but it really helps to have all the books of a certain category in the same place.

It’s fine to keep the shoes you wear most often in a cabinet near the front door and your other shoes elsewhere. And it’s helpful to keep all your toiletries together, but if this would make your bathroom cluttered, keep the items you use less often somewhere else.

Store Items as Close as Possible to Where You Will Use Them

This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s amazing how often people don’t do this and how much unnecessary extra work they cause themselves because of it. For instance, if you sometimes buy fresh flowers for your home, store your vases close to where you do your flower arranging.

If you have a dishwasher, make it easy to unload it by storing your plates and pans in the cabinets or drawers closest to it. If you have a waste paper basket, put it close to where you use it, not on the other side of the room.

Place Frequently Used Items in Easy-To-Get-To Locations

This means intelligently organizing things so that the most frequently used things are at the front of a storage area and at arm height, and the less frequently used things are further back or higher up or lower down. As much as possible, also arrange items so that you don’t have to move something else to get to them.

Have the Right Type of Storage for Your Needs

If you move to a new home and some of the boxes remain unpacked, a common reason is that you brought clutter with you. How long it stays in the boxes will give a good indication how true this is. Or it may be that you don’t yet have the right furniture to unpack the boxes to.

The problem with living like this is that it doesn’t allow you to fully arrive in your new home. You feel like you are squatting there rather than taking up the reins of ownership. You will feel adrift in life and not fully landed.

So, aim to unpack as much as possible within the first month of arriving and everything else as soon as you can. You may need to buy some furniture to achieve the type of streamlining I’m recommending, but investing in this will be very worthwhile. It goes a long way towards helping your home to feel like your home.

When You Use Something, Put it Back Where It Belongs

Following the tips in this article will reduce the amount of effort involved in keeping your home tidy and organized and will make you more likely to want to keep it that way. Get into the habit of putting things back where they belong when you have finished using them, and do a 10 to 20-minute tidy-up every evening to put your home in order so that you can start the next day fresh.

Regularly Review the Things You Keep

At least once a year, review the things you keep, and let go of any items you never use, don’t like or have too many of.

Stop Clutter Before It Starts

When deciding whether to buy or acquire something new, first ask yourself, where will I keep this? If the answer isn’t clear, walk away. You were just about to purchase clutter!

Does everything in your home have a place where it belongs? Do you feel better when you know where things are? What strategies have you used to stay organized? Please join the conversation