I've been using the mantra "everything is temporary" to remind myself not to get bogged down in the minutia of organizing when there's still decluttering left to do. My plan is very simple, but very broad and therefore time consuming.
I've already applied this logic to my clothes and books to be a proof of concept on easily gathered categories. The rest of our stuff isn't really sorted into categories yet and is spread across the house, So my plan is as follows:
- Day to day life needs to run smoothly. The decluttering has waited this long, and it can be done in the gaps.
- Sort everything into categories (some obvious garbage/donations can be tossed in this step)
- Go through each category carefully with Hugslut in order to keep only the things that make our life better.
- Seeing what's left & organize our stuff in a way that allows for frequent enjoyment of the beautiful things, easy access to the commonly used things, and easy tidying/cleaning/care of all our things.
Logically, organizing has to come last. My clothes and books aren't even necessarily in their permanent place (eg: I'm considering merging my long sleeved shirts and pants in the same drawer since there's few of each). If I were to (for instance) solidly decide that the dish rack goes on the fridge(where I've been keeping it for the last week or two), my brain would have been less likely to offer the idea it gave me yesterday which now has the dish rack tucked under the sink.
Because organizing comes last, I'm moving a bunch of stuff from pillar to post (and because I've got perfectionist tendencies, that's scary to me) and I have to keep reminding myself that storage is currently temporary and that I don't have to sit down right this second and decide the BEST spot for the thing in my hand... because I can't know the best spot yet. There is too much left that can change. So instead I'm just trying to keep like items together as I sort through.
Categories that have been decluttered include my clothes, my books, our makeup, my bathroom stuff.
Categories that are being gathered and have not yet been decluttered include a camping/travel section, a decoration/memento section, the tool box, the infrequently used cleaners/refills, my hobby/craft supplies, ect.
Things might get a bit messier & this might take til the end of the year, but I'm doing my best to keep the house livable and no more visually cluttered than usual while going through everything. That said, I do plan to go through EVERYTHING and so, "Everything Is Temporary".
