Peter Walsh has you all figured out.
You bought the melon baller because it was on sale and, heck, you like melon. You’ve held on to that 3-year-old magazine because you will make the recipe on Page 127. Some night. And those new black pumps do not look exactly like your four other pairs.
You’ve got yourself some clutter, my friend. And Walsh, best-selling author, host of TLC’s Clean Sweep and Oprah Winfrey’s go-to organizational expert, wants you to clear it out. Now.
“Clutter is really just decisions delayed.”
We chatted with Walsh about tackling five common clutter zones.
THAT KITCHEN DRAWER
“Take the pizza rolling slicing thing and all those other items you bought for less than $5.99 that you just knew you’d always use and put them in a cardboard box,” says Walsh. “Whenever you use one of the items, put it back in the drawer. At the end of the month—with the exception of the turkey baster—whatever is still in the cardboard box you’ve got to ask yourself, ‘Will I ever use these?’”
THE BEDROOM CLOSET
“We wear 20 per cent of our clothes 80 per cent of the time,” Walsh says. Which means the vast majority of your closet is filled with—you guessed it, clutter. Walsh suggests the “reverse clothes hanger trick.”
“Take everything on a clothes hanger and turn it around back-to-front. For the next three to six months—you decide—every time you wear something hang it back the correct way after you launder it. Whatever is still hanging back-to-front, ask yourself: ‘Will I ever wear this item?’ It’s an efficient, non-traumatic way to see what you wear and what you don’t.”
YOUR SHOES
“To understand how many shoes you have, you have to release them from captivity,” he says. “Find the largest room or hallway in your house and line them up. Every pair of shoes you have. Just the visual of that can often throw people into coma.”
Sort the shoes by type—running shoes, sensible pumps, sandals and so on. Then give yourself a ratio. “Let’s say it’s 10-to-1. For every 10 you keep, get rid of one pair,” Walsh says. “Five-to-1 if you’re brave. Three-to-1 if you’re a true pioneer.”
THE CAR
“One: Get in the habit that whenever you gas up the car, in those two minutes you declutter and throw out any trash.”
“Two: Get milk crate-size containers, and put them in the way back. Whenever the kids bring something into the car—sports gear, book bags—it goes in their crate.
“Whenever you go shopping, put the groceries in the crates. Nobody leaves the car empty-handed when you get home. Everyone has to carry their crate into the house.”
THE GARAGE
“Divide your garage into clear zones: one area for gardening equipment, one area for holiday decorations, one area for luggage, one area for tools,” Walsh says. “Establishing zones is a functional way of keeping the place organized and the volume of stuff in control.
“Say the holiday decorations zone is three shelves that will hold two plastic totes each and that’s the limit for holiday decorations. Once they expand beyond six totes, you have to do some purging and discarding.”
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