Survey #258—Full Response from Danetta
| Pronouns | She/her |
|---|---|
| What useful decluttering or organizing strategies or methods did you take away from the book? | Small decluttering actions add up Get items as close to where they should go as I can I try to limit like items to one shelf, one closet, or at least one room Keep decluttering and get the items into the trash, to family members, or to the Goodwill store |
| What parts or aspects of the book did you find difficult to grasp or challenging to apply to your home or situation? | I can’t pare books and yarn down to one container, but other items are easy for me to pare down: baking dishes, shoes, make-up, clothes… |
| Please share your favorite quotations or key ideas and concepts from this book. | Any amount I can declutter leaves the space easier to clean and manage. |
| 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? | I don’t get rid of anything I hesitate over so that I have no regrets. Nevertheless, as the house becomes easier and easier to maintain, I’m encouraged to not be too sentimental with every additional pass. |
| 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? | If I can only declutter 10% or 20% of my yarn or books or stationary or dishes, I am happy because it’s not easy and I’ve made progress. Sometimes it still doesn’t fit in the designated space but over the years I’ve eliminated some pieces of furniture and the boxes and baskets on the floor. It’s easier to clean and that encourages me to try another pass. I rotate from room to room, category to category, slowly chipping away at it. I’ve recently realized that I am held back by a few procrasticlutter projects and I have tackled a few of those too. I imperfectly hung pictures in my master bedroom to get them off the floor. I finished sewing sweater pieces together so that the knitted pieces weren’t sitting in a bag in the corner. |
| 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? | It’s nice to have a few clean rooms so that company can come over, but as soon as I have access to blocked out-of-the way areas, the amount of space I can free up is wonderful. The oldest and most easily declutterable categories can be in the hard to get to spaces. Paperwork from 1996 is a breeze to go through ! |
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