Clutter

Clutter

Restore Orderliness--And Your Sanity

The backseat of your car looks like a dumpster. The clothes in your bedroom closet look as though they spent the night on "tumble." The top drawer of your bathroom vanity is a jumble of barrettes, brushes, tweezers, scissors, nail clippers, half-empty bottles of moisturizer--and about 2,000 pennies.

Pan to the living room: Two years' worth of magazines spill off the coffee table and onto the floor. Shoes and socks, doffed the night before, litter the area. The cat is fast asleep on a sweatshirt discarded after a session on the excercise bike.

This is clutter. And therapists say that it's one of the most insidious causes of stress in a woman's life today.

How does clutter cause stress?

"Women feel that clutter is a negative reflection on them," says Susan M. Satya, a psychotherapist, faculty member at the New School for Social Research in New York City and director of Catalysts for Change in Southampton, New York. Stress is an automatic reaction. "After countless messages from the culture, we feel that caretaking, pleasing and comforting others--which certainly includes creating a nurturing space--is a woman's responsibility," she says. So when we enter a room cluttered with the sneakers, books, bags and papers of our busy lives, we often unconsciously get uneasy or overwhelmed. Our stress levels go up, our self-esteem goes down and our general feeling of health and well-being hits the dirt. "The only hope for cleaning up this reaction is to take on only your share of the work, expect others to do their share and remind yourself that your worth is multifaceted and that clutter is a reflection of an involved and interesting life," says Satya.

Sometimes, though, clutter makes it more difficult for women to do the overwhelming numbers of things that they do on a day-to-day basis. "Life is easier if you know where everything is," says Marjorie Hansen Shaevitz, director of the Institute of Family and Work Relationships in La Jolla, California, and author of The Superwoman Syndrome. But clutter means that things are not where they should be and that you'll probably have to spend valuable time hunting for them.

FREE ADVICE

Clutter-control experts normally charge a hefty hourly rate to help the organizationally challenged. Here are some tips that you can use for free.

Tackle one problem area at a time. "Getting rid of clutter is like losing weight," says Stephanie Schur, founder of SpaceOrganizers in White Plains, New York, producer of the video How to Organize Your Home and founding member of the New York chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers. "The 10 or 15 pounds that you need to lose seems impossible--until you divide that amount into smaller goals, like losing 2 pounds a week."

To conquer clutter, take a look at the whole house, decide what area bothers you the most and start there, says Schur. After you finish that area, work on the rest of your home on an area-by-area basis later.

Schedule a clutter clean-up day. Make an appointment in your personal planner or on your kitchen calendar to de-clutter, the same way that you would a doctor's appointment, says Schur. That way, it's harder to procrastinate.

Pick your best time to work. When do you have the most energy during the day? At 8:30 in the morning? Midnight? Work when you're fresh, says Schur. You're more likely to finish what you start.

Stick to the four-hour rule. Don't try to do major de-cluttering all at once, Schur says. Work up to four hours, tops. And make sure that you leave the last 30 minutes of that time to cart away stuff that you're recycling, giving away, throwing out or storing elsewhere.

Stock up on organizers. Car organizers, closet organizers, CD organizers, video organizers, desk organizers, shelf organizers, makeup organizers, bathroom organizers, drawer organizers, under-the-bed storage boxes--stroll through any hardware store or budget department store or flip through a catalog designed for organizing, and you can find a wide variety of products designed specifically to organize almost any kind of clutter that you would normally accumulate, says Schur.

Use baskets in clutter-prone areas. Baskets make great clutter collectors, because they are attractive and serve a purpose, says Schur. Put one beside the TV to hold the TV listings and remote controls; one beside the chair in which you do most of your reading so that you can toss magazines and newspapers that you plan to read, and so forth. Other key spots to target: the foot of any staircase (for fetching later), at the entrance to kids' bedrooms or playroom and on the kitchen counter.

Sort and pitch the mail. To sort the mail, stand over the trash can or recycling bin with letter opener in hand and sort as you go, suggests Schur. Keep the bills, bank statements and letters and put the catalogs and magazines that you want to look at later where you are most likely to read them.

Utilize door backs. Hang ties, scarfs, belts, and shoe bags on the backs of closet doors in your bedroom, says Schur. Hang measuring spoons, spice holders, lids, pot holders, even knife holders on the backs of kitchen cupboard doors.