Significant Others: Decluttering with (or in Spite of) Other People

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 Them on Board

This week’s assignment is to engage another member of your family or household in an organizing task or project. As you discuss the project or area in question, try your best to set aside judgment, blame, and any history the project may have. Focus instead on things on which you both agree and on constructive ways to move forward. Here are a few strategies to explore:

• Start a conversation. Talk about your stuff, their stuff, and shared stuff, how you use your home, and your shared roles in caring for the space.
• Listen as actively as you speak. Learn as much as you can so you’ll be able to accommodate one another’s different tastes, habits, and organizing styles.
• Communicate your needs. Clearly outline your intentions and expectations about organizing to the family member or housemate in question.
• Be prepared to compromise. Negotiate 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.