Survey #258—Full Response from Leana
| Pronouns | She/her |
|---|---|
| What useful decluttering or organizing strategies or methods did you take away from the book? | Start in visible spaces. "If I needed this item, where would I look for it first?" rather than "where should this go?" Steps: trash, easy stuff (Take it there now!), duh donations. These 3 are the low hanging fruit, giving early success and thereby aiding motivation). Then you can start making actual keep-toss decisions. Container Concept. You can keep anything , you just can't keep everything. Do the dishes (and other habits to adopt) to help the home look better and life flow better during the decluttering process and to help ensure long-lasting results. Letting daily tasks accumulate into weekly tasks makes those tasks take more total time (Dishes Math) and increases the sense of overwhelm. "Your house is not a project." (i.e., do your basic chores rather than let them accumulate. Not sure if this is from online content.) |
| What parts or aspects of the book did you find difficult to grasp or challenging to apply to your home or situation? | The book was a nice read (and I love listening to her videos because she is so down-to-earth and humorous!). My challenge continues to be inertia. I have long been able to visualize myself accomplishing tasks, but am sorely lacking in execution of those tasks. I can make lengthy to-do lists, but fail to get much done (I tend to choose less important tasks because they are easy; am not so fond of "unpleasant adulting"). Not sure what is going to "cure" me of this. I suffer from perfectionism as well as poor time estimating. I spend too much time doing unimportant things perfectly. I think if I could design some self-talk (like one of your listeners' "I'm acting like a crazy woman") it might help. Also considering use of a timer to perhaps get me to switch activities periodically through the day so I get SOMETHING useful done. (I do have a number of timers but find them noisy [tick tick tick] and jarring when they go off. Don't want the sounds to bug my poor husband. It would be more helpful to use the "crazy woman" motivator periodically through the day (as appropriate) rather than at the end of the day when finding that little has been accomplished. So perhaps a timer could be used to help me periodically refocus and ask myself whether or not I am acting like a crazy woman. |
| Please share your favorite quotations or key ideas and concepts from this book. | Please see my answer to question 1. |
| White suggests a decluttering process that requires making a final decision about each item (keep, trash, or donate) and placing the item in its appropriate home right away rather than into a “keep pile” or “keep box” for later organizing. If you’ve used her method, how has the “take it there right now” approach worked for you? What are the pros and cons of her suggested strategy? | All of my many piles of paper are basically a series of "keep piles." That isn't really working out so well. I think when working with papers, they can be sorted into stacks and then distributed to their "homes" at the end of a work session rather than moving papers individually. Dana does suggest when looking for "easy stuff" (stuff with an assigned home but not located there for whatever reason) that you look around the area being decluttered for other items that can be taken to the same "home" at the same time to save on steps. I do think "take it there now" is key to not ending up with multiple piles of stuff that never actually get dealt with when "life happens" and your work session ends prematurely; you might end up just stacking a bunch of piles and then you might not remember quite what you were doing whenever you get back to the project. I think "take it there now" is important to ensure the "no mess" aspect of her system. With her system, it should be possible to make forward motion in just 5-10 minutes. (So why am I not?...) |
| A big part of White’s decluttering philosophy is the “container concept”—the idea of setting firm limits on the containers you use to hold your stuff, where “containers” are understood to mean the boxes, bins, racks, baskets, drawers, cabinets, shelves, etc., that you use to hold stuff, as well as the rooms that must contain the containers—and then decluttering to fit those limits. If you’ve used her method, how has the “container concept” helped or hindered your decluttering? What are the pros and cons of her methodology? Are there areas or categories of stuff for which it works better than others? | Well, I think it has turned out that I have too much space. I can always find room for stuff by stacking things just a little differently. 😉 My office is a disaster and items that belong there have definitely spilled out of that container! I'm working on taming that area, in particular. Because I am kind of "Out of sight, out of mind," things get spread out too much. There is not a surface (or container) in the world big enough for my papers! 🙁 Otherwise, when things are actually put away, we pretty much adhere to the container concept. Books are kind of a problem area, though. (We are working toward downsizing in a few years and have some idea of the size of place we hope to go to. So we are trying to be mindful of the size of the "containers" (rooms & closets) in the new place as we decide what to keep vs. donate.) |
| White suggests following the “visibility rule”: Start every session of decluttering in the most visible places in your home. If you’ve used her method, how has the “visibility rule” helped or hindered your decluttering? What are the pros and cons of her suggested approach? | I like the visibility rule because if you can make those areas presentable, you won't be so reluctant to invite people over. Unfortunately, some of my papers have escaped to the public areas; and I do find that I need to do some decluttering and organizing in the office itself to make room for the "escapees." The "public areas" are also the areas most shared with other family members, so focusing there first is also beneficial for relationships. |
| Here’s your chance to ask Gayle and Ed any question you’re curious about. It need not be related to this survey’s topic(s). If we think that your question—and our answer—might be useful or instructive to The Clutter Fairy Weekly audience, we’ll share them in an upcoming episode. | Just wanted to say that Gayle's advice this week to the woman whose elderly father is losing his eyesight was so good - so heartfelt and really put priorities in perspective. His safety and well-being in the home is paramount, and although the eventual clean-out of his home will be difficult later on, taking the time to learn from him in advance what is or is not treasured will ease that process. It will be a great gift to herself if she takes the opportunity to hear his stories before that possibility disappears. |
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