Cutting the Clutter
by Lori Garcia, editor-in-chief

Are you looking around your cluttered house (right now) and thinking, “I could organize my home from top to bottom if I just had two weeks … and maybe a personal assistant named “Martha?”

Style Chic can’t grant you time off from work or from your family, and we can’t guarantee that a certain Miss Stewart will agree to organize your home (for free of course), but, Style Chic has something even better. We’ve scoured the Internet for tips of how you can de-clutter your house and your life. We’ve learned from the experts, and even had a little trial-and-error or our own. Check out this month’s article and we promise even the biggest pack rat can learn to let go.

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You know when you give a talk in sacrament meeting, and you think, “Gee, this topic is really something I need to work on.” You think, “this talk is benefiting me more than the rest of the ward.” Well, that’s kind of the way I approach this article of de-cluttering your life…I need this more than probably any of you. I am a pack rat, Queen of Clutter, I just can’t seem to let go….

Thoughts like, “I can’t just throw it away! What if I need this [insert random useless item] for some sort of project in the future?” consume my life. That’s why I decided to go on a personal journey of de-cluttering my life!

Where do I start?

Rome wasn't organized in a day

“Just as clutter arises gradually, over time, so it must be fought gradually and over time,” Cynthia Townley Ewer,editor of OrganizedHome.com says. “Beating clutter requires building new habits, applying new organizational methods, and creating new household routines. The clutter cure takes time, and can't be short-cut.”

I guess it's like they always said, you can only eat an elephant one bite at a time. The following are a few personal case studies. Here's what they help of experts have done for me:

First stop my bathroom.

Case #1: My cluttered bathroom The Need: I have a few essential beauty products that I would like to have out in sight and within reach when I get ready in the mornings. The Problem: Little or no storage space in my cramped bathroom. I had been leaving my supplies just on top of the vanity, but it was very cluttered. The Solution: Removal storage. We opted for a basket to serve as a storage element for all of my beauty necessities. This way, I could pack all my stuff in the basket, and have them easily within reach in the morning. When I'm done getting ready, I can easily grab the basket and place it underneath the sink in the cabinet...whola! No clutter on my bathroom vanity. Here, a basket is a good solution to solving our bathroom clutter. After I'm done getting ready in the morning, I can slip the basket under the sink, so there's no more clutter.

Schedule an Organize/De-clutter time once a day or once a week

“Even 15 minutes a day will make a good start. Better, schedule larger blocks of time, from two to four hours once or twice a week, for maximum de-clutter efficiency,” Townley Ewer says.

Although this sounds like a lot of time spent organizing, I would suggest at least doing a "walk through" of your home every day. This way the clutter won't pile up.

Make a Family Organizing Binder
This website will help you compile things that are important to your family into one central binder. This website has templates you can download and print off yourself.

Set a good example

Maybe the best way to organize and unclutter your home is to serve as an example to the rest of the family. Kids watch their parents to see what they value. If you value organization and cleanliness, they will be more apt to value it too. (Okay, so you’re probably looking at your 16-year-old’s room right about now and thinking, “My child sure didn’t follow my example!”) But you never know what kids will pick up over time.

Okay, time for another real-life project:

Case #2: Organizing my Primary Supplies The Need: Anyone who's ever worked in Primary knows about the poster board, construction paper, markers, glue, scissors, stamps, clear contact paper, the Friend magazines, etc., that tend to pile up. We needed a convenient place to put them where they were easily taken out and easily put away. The Problem: Our home is a two-story townhouse with limited space for extra storage and cabinets. Also, I wanted a place to store my supplies close to the dinning room table, my favorite spot for creating posters, etc. The Solution: Use what you have to serve as storage. In our dining room, we had a large buffet that was only partly filled with China. We used the other areas (large drawers) to store all my Primary supplies together and close to the dining room table where I would be working. That way accessing supplies and putting them away, wouldn't be a challenge. A elegant buffet was sitting in our dinning room half empty. We organized my Primary supplies and visual aides in the empty buffet drawers. Smaller compartments were created by using inexpensive plastic organizers and containers.