Thin the Herd: A Clutter Fairy Guide to Talking About Organizing

List of expressions discussed in this episode:

Note: I haven’t had time yet to audit this list carefully against the video, so it contains at least a few topics that we had to omit because of time constraints. Drop me a note of there’s an item below that you’d like to hear more about! —Ed

• Eating an elephant.
• Peeling the onion
• Bigger buckets
• Acronyms and initialisms:
  • OHIO: Only handle it once.
  • DOOM: Don’t organize, only move.
  • PICNIC: Problem in chair, not in computer
  • CHAOS: Can’t-have-anyone-over syndrome (source: FlyLady)
  • CUTE: Can’t use that—ever
  • SPACE: Sort, purge, assign a home, containerize, evaluate periodically (source; Julie Morgenstern)
  • UFO: Unfinished object
  • FORO: Fear of running out
  • ATAD: A thing a day
  • GETMO: Good enough to move on
• Ask before tossing.
• One in, one out.
• “Good for you!” 
• “When in doubt, toss it out.”
• Representative sample
• “Release it back into the wild.”
• “Send it down the river of stuff.”
• The Hula Hoop method
• “Don’t leave a room empty-handed.”
• “Donate what someone can use.”
• “Embrace negative space.”
• Floors first 
• “Don’t put it down, put it away.”
• “This isn’t who you are anymore.” 
• “The garage is where things go to die.”
• “The things you own end up owning you.” (source: Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk)
• “Do it now if it takes less than two minutes.”
• Low-hanging fruit
• “Everything counts.”
• “Circle back.”
• “Shop your own store.” And the converse: “Instead of storing everything you might ever need, leave it at the store, and go get it when you actually need it!”
• Tetris organizing 
• “Set it free.”
• “It’s still useful, but you’re not using it—so let someone else get the usefulness out of it.”
• “Give it space to breathe.”
• “Touch everything”
• “Marinate” 
• “Scramble-ize”
• “Start by clearing a path”
• Thin the herd