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Springing into Action
7 Tips to Help Organize Your Home
By I.J. Schecter
(Atria, 2004), who suggests the "10-minute toss" strategy. Take two boxes, one marked CHARITY and one marked DUMP, then take 10 minutes every day to put a single item – just one item – into one box or the other. A good rule of thumb is this, if you haven't used it in a year, you aren't going to use it.
Almost all of us have a drawer or closet that has become the receptacle for items that fall into the not-sure-where-to-put-this category. Things like paper clips and Post-Its are classic occupants of this kind of space, which starts by having just a roll of Scotch tape and an old felt tip pen, and then, before you know it, has become the Lost Valley of the Rejected Office Implements. Attack these areas one at a time, remembering that, if something is truly useful to you, you'll figure out where it belongs. By the way, rearranging stuff you're never going to use doesn't count as cleaning. "Tidy clutter is still clutter," Gibson says.
Clothes have a way of hanging around longer – sometimes much longer – than necessary, and it takes serious discipline to pare. "We wear 20 percent of our clothing 80 percent of the time," Best says. "Try to make good decisions about purchasing new items."
Involve your family in the spring cleaning ritual by both cleaning your home and kick-starting your bodies. "On the first day of every spring, turn off the TV for a week," Gibson says. "This represents mental and emotional cleansing. During the hours you'd otherwise sit glued to the screen, organize some shared family activity instead. It will make a difference to you as individuals and as a collective."
