• Make your bedroom a peaceful sanctuary. Toss anything that agitates or distracts you.
• Have only one TV in the house. Watching a lot of TV is lifestyle clutter. Have the most limited cable package. You can watch only one channel at a time.
• Limit your CDs or MP3 albums to fewer than a hundred. Keep only the music that you will actually listen to now.
• Toss anything that is broken, that can't be fixed, or that you won't take to be fixed.
• Watch your thoughts and become aware of the mental clutter. Your awareness will naturally sift out this clutter.
• Be kind to yourself in the process of tossing. Go at your own pace. Drink plenty of water throughout, and make sure to have snacks by your side.
• Take breaks in clutter busting if you are getting overwhelmed. Take a walk outside.
• You can't organize until you toss the clutter.
• Put nothing in storage. Storage is clutter alimony and a waste of your money.
• Avoid the habit of hiding things that you don't want to look at. Even if something is buried at the bottom of a box, underneath other clutter, it still affects you. Everything you own is attached to you in a subtle way. It will drag you down.
• Toss things that you think lend you an image. You are fooling yourself. You are not a style. You alone are more than enough.
• Walk through your house. When you find your attention sinking like an anchor in a particular spot, stop. Your clutter radar has gone off. Investigate judiciously.
• Only your feelings matter. Avoid asking someone if you should keep something. Trust whatever you decide.
• If you suddenly think of something as clutter, it is. Toss it – now.
• Either give your clutter to charity, post it on an online Freecycle site, or put it out on the curb for someone else to find. Having a garage sale spells procrastination for most people, and whatever doesn't sell usually ends up back in the house. Be strong. Let it go. You are intuitive. Trust your decisions.
• Be patient. There's no need to push yourself or try to clutter bust your entire place in one sitting. Approach one area at a time.
• Clutter is sticky. Look for things that have piled up or been layered together. Chances are you can toss it all.
• If you are in a good relationship or want to be, toss old relationship reminders: love letters and emails and special gifts from old lovers. These keep you trapped in ghostly memories of the heart.
• Trying to keep memories alive in things is like trapping a ghost in a box. It will always be a ghost.
• Have fun!
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Excerpted from the book Clutter Busting: Letting Go Of What's Holding You Back. © 2009 Brooks Palmer. Printed with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. All Rights Reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced except with permission in writing from the publisher.
