The Clutter Fairy Weekly #161
NAPO 2023 Summit Report | A Case Study in “Tetris Organizing”
This week Gayle attended the annual summit of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals in Las Vegas. She’ll share a report on the latest news, ideas, trends, and products in the organizing industry.
Do your closets or storage spaces resemble a game of Tetris, with every item, box, or bin carefully shoehorned into its designated slot? We’ll discuss the pitfalls of “Tetris organizing” and suggest alternative approaches that are easier to use and maintain.
In episode #161 of The Clutter Fairy Weekly, Gayle Goddard, professional organizer and owner of The Clutter Fairy in Houston, Texas, discusses these topics and answers questions from our viewers and listeners.
Links mentioned in this episode:
- International Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Federation Clutter Image Rating Scale
- Institute for Challenging Disorganization Clutter-Hoarding Scale® Quick Reference Guide
- Institute for Challenging Disorganization Collecting, Compulsive Acquiring or Hoarding Behavior Fact Sheet
- Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD) web site
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The Weekly Tittle is an exercise designed to focus your attention on a specific space, aspect, or challenge of decluttering and organizing your home. We assign a new tittle in each webcast/podcast, then check on your progress the following week.
Don’t Play That Game
This week’s assignment is to “de-Tetris-ize” a congested storage space to make it easier and less stressful to maintain:
- Identify an area in your home that suffers from “Tetris syndrome”—any storage space that’s carefully organized, but packed so tightly that you have to spend time undoing and redoing the system whenever you need to get something out or put it away.
- Assess the area. Think about how much volume you would need to free up to make it work more smoothly. Note the categories of stuff that you store in this space. Are you keeping anything here that could more logically be kept elsewhere?
- Unpack the space, one category at a time, and process the items through your decluttering filters: Do you still love these items? Do you use them? Do they still support the life you want?
- Repeat the previous step for each of the categories or types of stuff that you stash in this space. Anything you set free is one less thing that will be blocking you from getting at the good stuff you decide to keep!
- When you’re ready to put stuff back, evaluate the containers you’re using. Are they the most appropriate tools for the purpose? Repack each set of items into the smallest bin, box, basket, or other container that will do the job.
- Remember, the ultimate goal is an arrangement in which it’s easy for you to get out anything you need and easy to put the item away again when you’re finished using it.
- If you don’t have a Tetris-organized area in your home, you can still apply these steps to optimize a closet or storage space to better accommodate future additions to your stash!
For the full discussion of this week’s tittle, watch the Weekly Tittle segment on YouTube.
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