Survey #258—Full Response from CJ
| Pronouns | She/her |
|---|---|
| What useful decluttering or organizing strategies or methods did you take away from the book? | Always start my decluttering process with the easy stuff: easily identifiable trash, donations, and items that already have an established home, including what Dana calls “procrasticlutter” = the recurring chores that aren’t quite done like piles of clean dishes or laundry. When I struggle with motivation to get started, or even knowing where to start, these simple basics provide direction & momentum due to taking action and seeing immediate improvement. |
| What parts or aspects of the book did you find difficult to grasp or challenging to apply to your home or situation? | I find it challenging to accept the limitations of the space. I also can’t seem to apply chapter 7 about unsorted donating to get things out of my house quickly. I’m still hung up on finding the right destination. I have struggled with the idea of letting go of perfectly good items that are difficult to donate or sell but I know I don’t use. |
| Please share your favorite quotations or key ideas and concepts from this book. | I like her mission statement: ‘Accept and adjust to the reality of your right now life. Choose to prioritize the present over the future or the past. *Consciously* decide to view my home as a place to LIVE instead of a place to STORE stuff.’ Also, the principles: “the clutter threshold = removing what you can’t consistently keep under control” ; “define a room’s main purpose” ; “where would I look for this first?” & “You can only change you.” |
| 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? | Generally speaking, “take it there now” works great, especially for a quick sort of surfaces where I often know right where I would look for it first and can easily put it there. The task is finished and I can easily find things again. I’ve come to prefer not using a “keep box” that jumbles everything together & needs to be sorted and dealt with again. However, when it comes to sorting a conglomerate mass of items that I’m unsure about, I still struggle with making a final decision on one random homeless item at a time without first pulling out everything and presorting into categories to bring that item into context & provide clarity. |
| 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 a work in progress. I realize that she is trying to help us gain perspective — valuing the livable space over the storage so I’m working on applying the concept. In the kitchen & dining spaces, it has revealed to me which nonessential items were taking up prime real estate & could go to make room for what we actually use. This makes those rooms function so much better! Yet, I don’t want to arbitrarily get rid of items that I love & use simply because the container for that category is limited (ie, clothes). That seems wasteful. |
| 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? | The visibility rule has helped not just my home but my marriage! When I worked in hidden spaces first, I know my husband would be wondering (without saying it), “Has anything actually been decluttered?” Whereas when I do the visible areas first, he walks in and says, “wow you’ve worked so hard and got so much done!” even at times when it didn’t take very long to complete those areas before moving on to hidden spaces. For myself, I enjoy seeing the results of my work on a daily basis. I’m much less stressed about having people come into our home, especially the cat sitters when we’re away. There’s always more decluttering to do but when the visible spaces are clear, everything feels so much better! |
| 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. | Have you tried Dana K White’s method yet, either personally or professionally? If so, how did it compare with other techniques that you used? |
| Future topics | Next book club suggestion: Her method is nearly the exact opposite of Dana K White’s no mess method. She makes a big “mess”, pulling everything out onto a surface (bed, table, etc) and stuff shifts repeatedly throughout the process. It’s by room rather than category (as opposed to Marie Kondo). I prefer her method for tackling overwhelming junk rooms. |
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