Posted on: June 2, 2006

Make a Little Space to Organize

To unclutter your small home efficiently and effectively, you must first eliminate your emotional baggage.

By Paige Bowie
CTW Features

It’s even easy for homeowners with vast amounts of space to get buried alive in clutter. All the more so for those in dorm rooms, studios or small apartments and condos.

Such places often lack an attic, basement, garage or backyard storage shed for all those unread books, clothes that don’t fit and toys no longer used.

Don’t let your lack of space serve as an excuse to put off getting organized. If anything, people in smaller residences are much more in need of efficient storage space and a merciless eye when it comes to deciding what to save and what to pitch.

The first step in any decluttering effort is to take an objective look at the space you want to straighten up. View it with a fresh eye. Identify what you don’t like about it, and what you do. Try to imagine how you’d like it to look.

Then swallow hard and get to work.

Haul out everything, absolutely everything, and start sorting your junk into piles. Place like with like, all the sporting equipment in one pile, clothes in another, toys in yet another.

The advantage of that is that you’ll have everything categorized so it will be easier to find things when you put all that stuff back

It’s also helpful for identifying redundancy, said Faith Smith, owner of Smith Organizing Services, Willow Grove, Penn.

“You may find, once you get all the clothes together, that you have 17 pairs of black pants,” she said. “Does anybody really need 17 pants in the same color? Of course not. You can cut that in half.”

At least two of the piles should be items to be discarded. Set aside a spot for trash and another spot for things to be donated to charity.

Be ruthless about getting rid of stuff you haven’t used in years, said Debbie Stanley, author of “Organize Your Home… In No Time” (Que Publishing, 2005). If you keep something, there’d better be a pretty compelling reason. If you can’t think of one, be honest with yourself about the reason you’re hoarding.

“I had one client who was recently divorced who had a whole house worth of stuff crammed into a one-bedroom condo, and what it came down to is he didn’t want to accept that he was divorced and living alone,” she says. “Sometimes, there are underlying issues that make reality hard to face.”

If that’s the case, the time to declutter isn’t necessarily immediately after some emotionally jarring event, such as a divorce or a loved one dying or moving into a nursing home. Give yourself some time and emotional distance from the trauma.

“That’s not a time when people tend to think clearly,” Smith says.

She finds the hardest sell is Christmas decorations.

“It’s really hard to convince people to let go of some of those sentimental ornaments and things, even if they aren’t using them anymore,” she says.

Don’t fret. It isn’t that sentimental items aren’t allowed at all. Smith just urges clients to stop deluding themselves that they must have something that no longer serves any practical purpose within easy reach at all times.

Move a sentimental few keepsakes someplace safe and out of the way, perhaps in an attic or rented offsite storage unit, says Smith.

Once you’ve decided what to toss, come up with a storage system for those items you choose to keep, says Jennifer MacDowell, a professional organizer with Organized Space outside Los Angeles.

With paper, for instance, “get a filing system that really works,” she says. “You can find one that doesn’t work, so you have to pick something that truly works for your particular style.”

For small items, she likes plastic containers because they can be stacked one on top of another and are easy to label. They’re also waterproof.

Take advantage of vertical space, too. You may have limited floor space but high ceilings. Tall shelves can make all that empty air work for you.

That’s especially true in closets, which tend to have a lot of unused wall-space. It you’re really pressed, it may be worth the money to invest in a professionally installed closet organizing system. They can be pricey, but they give even the smallest closets a lot more storage room.

Another good idea is multipurpose furniture such as a hollow ottoman with storage space inside, or a bed with drawers underneath.

Don’t think you have to sacrifice style in the process, says MacDowell, who also is an interior designer.

“There’s some really ugly stuff out there,” she says. “Keep looking until you find pieces that work with your décor. Hire a professional, if you need to. There’s no reason to settle.”

Once you’ve got your home where you want it, maintain that hard work by closely scrutinizing what comes in in the first place, author Stanley says.

“Everything in my home has a place,” she says. “Whenever someone gives me something, right then and there I’m already thinking whether or not I’m going to keep it, and if I am, I know exactly where it’s going to go.”

Realize, too, that decluttering is an ongoing, never-ending process that demands vigilance.

“It’s a constant thing when you live in tiny quarters,” MacDonald says. “You have to really keep on top of everything you bring in.”

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