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For the past decade, I've been helping New Yorkers from all income brackets and in every borough organize their spaces. I go through everything from basements to storage units to apartments and have helped declutter walk-in closets, offices, bedrooms, kitchens, and studios that boast just enough square footage to house a single person and their computer.
I don't follow a specific technique to contain the chaos. While not entirely unique, each individual situation also needs an individualized set of guidelines, not just to keep the stuff itself in check but to accommodate each of our idiosyncrasies. Our brains all work differently, what makes sense to some of us may not even occur to others. Some of us see a space and immediately jump to fulfill its potential, others see a space and feel stymied by the possibilities. One person's order of operations is another's nightmare scenario.
This means that no matter how beautiful some organizational systems are, they may not be intuitive or even practical for everyone, so attempting to mirror what you've seen on Pinterest may not be in your best interest.
That said, there are a few universal lessons I've learned from tackling these projects.
We all love The Container Store. I get it. I used to go there during the weeks after college graduation just to feel less stressed. I strolled through the aisles and was calmed by the matching baskets and logical closet setups.
But a set of perfectly labeled storage bins may not be the panacea standing between you and serenity, and you won't know until you finish getting rid of all the clutter and actually see what you have left. Until then, the boxes will be nothing more than additional clutter.
You know your junk drawer? It's aptly named, and yes, probably full of junk. Like actual trash. Old receipts, dead batteries, rubber bands, business cards from five jobs ago. But the drawer itself is valuable, as is the closet that you stuff things into when you're not sure where else to put them.
Start with all the spaces that can be used for storage. Cabinets, medicine closets, bookshelves, desk drawers — dump them out one at a time and go through them piece by piece. Divide it by what you want to keep, what you want to donate or give to someone you know, and what you want to trash.
If you want to donate it, put it in a bag. If you want to trash it, send it to the trash immediately. If you want to keep it, put it back. You'll get to the organization part later. Once you're done, you'll probably discover how much space you already have. See? You didn't need all those boxes!
A good chunk of what I do for people is stare them down until they acknowledge that they don't actually need to keep everything that once held meaning. Cards from exes, playbills or concert tickets, the macaroni art your kid made in preschool — you don't have to get rid of all of it, but at the very least, pare it down so it's not taking up as much real estate. Take pictures of things for posterity if you think you'll miss them.
Oh my god, the sheer volume of appliance and electronic packaging and manuals I've seen. Unless you're hoping to sell something and need to hang on to the original box to up its value — in which case, you can fold it up flat — toss it.
If you're moving, you can put it in a different box. I promise you. It'll be OK. As for the manuals, see if they're on the company's website and download the PDFs to a folder on your computer. If they're nowhere to be found online, take pictures of the instructions you need and then recycle the hard copy.
Yes, there are circumstances where a size change is inevitable — for example, if you're pregnant or postpartum — but holding onto clothes that are aspirational or that you use to check whether you're on track to achieving a goal weight rarely benefits the psyche.
I've been guilty of this, too; I've kept dresses for the sole purpose of measuring myself. Instead, use your precious closet space to store items that look good on you now. If you change sizes, you can get new clothes, either from a store or from people in your community. Closet space is a precious commodity.
