Survey #258—Full Response from Gabriella
| Pronouns | She/her |
|---|---|
| What useful decluttering or organizing strategies or methods did you take away from the book? | (taken from Dana K. White's videos, since I didn't read her book) - "10 minutes matter": a revelation, that I've tweaked for myself intto "every item decluttered makes a difference" and into doing many "30 second pick-ups" distributed throughout the day. This can work wonders for maintaining any high-trafic clutter hotspot and feels extremely rewarding. - The "container concept": the house as a container that holds only a finite amount of stuff. Of course this pertains to every subcontainer as well. - "No mess decluttering" is especially useful in preventing decluttering messes during times when interuptions are highly probable to occur. I usually prefer to pull everything out of a very restricted space or category and then reverse declutter though. The "5 step method": especially steps 1 -3 make it much easier to clean/ declutter an overwhelming space (I used to do this long before I came across the 5 step method, however) |
| Please share your favorite quotations or key ideas and concepts from this book. | See 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? | I sometimes find it hard to make a final decision about every item I come across - and I give myself grace to decide whenever I'm ready for it. I like the idea of taking every item to it's designated place immediately, as it prevents "remnant clutter" sitting around after decluttering, that tends to act like rock candy cristals for future clutter. I have mixed feelings about "Where would you look for it first": Positive: It helps people find a place that suits their particular way of functioning, instead of what they "should do." Potentially problematic: For example, I would look for my keys in my entryway. This space is massively cluttered, however. On top of that, there are other members of my family who move things around and add more clutter to this space continuously. Where would I place the key in the midst of all this mess so that I'd be sure to find them again? I have no idea where I would look first for the item, but I definitely want to keep it - even though Dana K. White brings up some well-founded reasons for decluttering it in that case. |
| 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? | The container concept is great! It's very down to earth and realistic and, in my opinion, one of the best elements of her method. Taking the idea further though, it's not just about keeping a container from overflowing. There's a qualitatve difference between a container that's filled almost to its limits but is still OK and a container only moderately filled, making it easy to spot and access the items contained. The latter can be a great safeguard against recreating a mess. The Minimal Mom advises to keep containers no more than semi-filled. I find the idea extremely useful, especially when applied to frequently used items. |
| 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? | Pro: - Quick, visible wins and therefore very motivating Con: - This will hardly help if you need to take something out of a particular cabinet, but when you open its door an avalanche of random objects spill out. I decide on spaces to declutter first according to what my current situation asks for: e. g. I gave priority to decluttering my books that were neatly tetrissed away behind the doors of a big cabinet, even though decluttering the small number of unnecessary items sitting out on the kichen counter would have been a quick and easy win. |
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