The Clutter Fairy Weekly #67

Sharing Space: Strategies for Reducing Household Conflict and Clutter

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Spouses, parents, children, roommates, housemates, and even guests who overstay their welcome can introduce extra complexity to our organizing challenges. In episode #67 of The Clutter Fairy Weekly, Gayle Goddard, professional organizer and owner of The Clutter Fairy in Houston, Texas, examines these complicating factors and suggests ways to improve communication, negotiation, and cooperation to decrease household conflict and clutter.

Take the Clutterbug test mentioned in this episode.

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Weekly Tittle

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.

Get Everybody on Board

This week’s assignment is to engage another member of your family or household in an organizing task or project. For example, one of our Zoom participants mentioned needing her husband to make decisions about a vinyl record collection to which he never listens, but which is taking up a lot of storage space.

As you discuss the task or area in question, set aside judgment, blame, and any history the project may have. Focus instead on things on which you can agree and on constructive ways to move forward, such as:

  • improving your communication about stuff, how you use your home, and your shared roles in caring for the space
  • learning more about and accommodating one another’s different tastes, habits, and organizing styles
  • clearly communicating your needs about organizing to the family member or housemate in question
  • negotiating specific solutions to address the most troubling areas—the things that bother each of you the most.

For the full discussion of this week’s tittle, watch the Weekly Tittle segment on YouTube.

Chat Transcript

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