I’ve seen guides that say they’ll teach you how to “declutter your home instantly!” I’ve never read the guides, but I can guarantee that “instantly” is a blatant lie. Even instant coffee still takes a couple minutes in the microwave, and there’s no way you’d have your house decluttered by the time your cup o’ joe is ready.
How To Declutter Almost Instantly
If you want to declutter almost instantly though, here’s your guide:
Rent a dumpster. Take a garbage can. Walk around your house, and throw away everything you trip over. Throw away anything that’s in the way of you moving around. Anything that prevents a surface from being used, toss it into the garbage can. This goes for shoes, coats, paperwork, and the cat/dog if necessary. Haul the garbage can to and from the dumpster as often as necessary.
Since the definition of clutter roughly equates to “stuff that’s in the way”, I guarantee you there will be no clutter left in your home if you take that advice.
But Let’s Be Reasonable
I also guarantee the method above won’t get you the results you really want. It’s completely unreasonable, and the advice is asinine in about a hundred different ways.
But I want you to think about it for just a minute. Imagine how long it would take to do what I said. For some, it could be done in an hour or so. For those with lots of stuff and a large mess, just throwing everything away could take a day or more.
That amount of time is what engineers refer to as a “lower limit”. The process of hauling everything to the dumpster is the quickest method available to you. There’s no way you’re going to get it done in less time than it takes to do that.
Once we can get the idea of “instant” out of our heads, we can get a realistic picture of how long it’ll take to dispose of.
How Long Did It Take To Accumulate?
If you’re dealing with ten years worth of clutter,
A Piece At A Time
There’s exactly one thing that’s required if you want your decluttering efforts to be a success. Ready?
Your flow of stuff must be negative.
That’s it. More stuff has to be leaving than coming in. If 24 boxes of stuff come in, and 25 boxes leave, you’re down one box. If that happens every week, you’ll downsize 52 boxes a year.
Everything else is strategy, broken into one of three categories:
Stopping Accrual – You try to prevent new stuff from waltzing through your door.
Increasing Disposal – You try to get more stuff disposed, donated, or removed.
Ordering The Remainder – Organizing everything that’s left, so you can efficiently use what you have.
Forget “instant”, and focus on developing habits that support a negative flow of stuff!