Gayle Goddard facilitates the November monthly meeting of the Houston Clutter Coaching Meetup Group: ’Tis the Season to be…Decluttering!.

Henshaw House (Nature Discovery Center)
Russ Pitman Park
7112 Newcastle St.
Bellaire, TX 77401
713-667-6550

Let go of the old to make room for the new.

At the November meetup, we’ll check in on the project we introduced in October: “Making Room for Holiday Guests.” Come tell the group about your progress and we’ll share hints about how to keep moving forward.

We’ll also introduce our focus for December: “’Tis the Season to be…Decluttering!” Christmas and Hanukkah are on the way, and they come bearing gifts! So December is a crucial time to clear space. Teach your children a timely organizing lesson by encouraging them to recycle unwanted toys and games to benefit the less fortunate. And children of all ages can get into the spirit of the season—you and your spouse can also let go of the old to make room for the new

We’ll provide refreshments, and don’t forget the drawing for a door prize or two! (You must be present to win.)

FREE and open to the public.

RSVP by visiting the Meetup page or by sending us e‑mail.

The Houston Clutter Coaching Meetup Group is a community of people who want to conquer their clutter and make more room in their lives for the things they love. Come learn tools and tips from an expert, and share your success stories and “ah‑hah!” moments…[READ MORE]

My clients offer a lot of explanations for why they can’t part with the stuff that clutters their lives. Below are some of the reasons I hear the most often. I’d like to offer some ways to think differently about what to keep and what to let go.

“This cost me a lot of money.”

Okay, so what? Are you using it? Do you like it? If it’s just gathering dust because you don’t want to admit that you made a buying mistake, you have a problem. Sell the item on Craig’s List or eBay, donate it to charity for the tax write-off, or have a garage sale. If something has no other value to you, the fact that it cost a lot of money isn’t a good enough reason for it to waste valuable space in your life.

“My mother/friend/husband/child gave me this.”

Again I ask: do you like it? Are you using it? Does it fit your décor? Your mother or friend or husband or child will be happier with a lovely, uncluttered space than with a space cluttered by things you don’t need. If you’re worried about what they’ll think, offer to give the item back. Otherwise, thank your friends and family sincerely when they give you a gift, but if it’s not your cup of tea, pass it on. Look around the house—there are probably plenty of other gifts that you are keeping. Let go of the ones that you don’t want or use.

“This belonged to my deceased parent/friend.”

This is a hard one—very hard! Sometimes we think we need to hang on to the object to honor or keep alive the memory of the loved one. The truth is that you probably don’t need a lot of stuff to trigger your memories of the most special people. Whenever you talk about them or look at photos, the memories will be there. You won’t lose that love just because you give away the things. Keep one or two precious objects, but let the rest go to a new home.

“I’m going to fix this someday.”

I doubt it! If you really wanted to fix and use it, you would have done it already. Let someone else handle the repairs—someone with a clear and current need for the thing. Especially if you’ve already replaced the broken object with a working model, it’s time to let the old one go.

“I can’t decide if I need this or not.”

Fair enough. Create an “outbox” in your garage or utility room. Put the item that you can’t decide about in there, and leave it for a week. If you haven’t found a need for it and retrieved it within a week, you can probably give it away.

“This belongs to my kids.”

Your house is not your kids’ storage unit. Teach them about ownership and responsibility for their possessions by asking them to manage their own stuff, rather than continuing to store it for them.

“We used to use this all the time.”

Everyone changes over time. What was important then may not be today. You must reevaluate your possessions against your new priorities, not your old ones.

Gayle Goddard facilitates the monthly meeting of the Houston Clutter Coaching Meetup Group. The topic for November’s meetup will be “Gift-buying Advice.” Ensure that the gifts you buy this holiday season don’t end up stuffed in the recipient’s closet. Gayle will offer some clutter-free gift giving advice.

Freed-Montrose Library
4100 Montrose Blvd.
Houston, TX 77006
832-393-1800

FREE and open to the public

RSVP by visiting the Meetup page or by sending us e‑mail.

The Houston Clutter Coaching Meetup Group is a community of people who want to conquer their clutter and make more room in their lives for the things they love. Come learn tools and tips from an expert, and share your success stories and “ah‑hah!” moments…[READ MORE]

This program is not sponsored or endorsed by Houston Public Library.

If you have a special physical or communications need that may impact your participation in this activity, please contact Gayle Goddard at 713‑816‑9505 at least 72 hours prior to the event to discuss accommodations. We cannot ensure the availability of appropriate accommodations without prior notification of need.

Mistake #5: Products first

What does every American do when she wants to start a project? She goes shopping! Everyone wants to start getting organized by purchasing organizing products first. The result: several hundred dollars added to the credit card balance and a stack of not-quite-right containers in the house, piled on top of the clutter.

The Clutter Fairy alternative: Sort through the entire contents of one room first, sorting to determine what you will keep and what can be trashed, recycled, put in another room, or given away. When you get down to the real “keep” pile, then you can go shopping with a plan for exactly what and how much you need to contain, and you’ll only buy the products you actually need.

Mistake #4: Clear-time blindness

No one looks forward to clearing out a long-neglected space (except maybe professional organizers). There’s a common mental disconnect between the time it took to create the chaos and the time it’s likely to take to clear it out. So people tend to make a mental adjustment, reducing cleaning time from how long it will actually take to the amount of time they’re willing to put in. If you’ve neglected organization for six months, it’s going to take more than a Saturday afternoon to get your space under control.

The Clutter Fairy alternative: Be realistic about the time a project will take. Don’t underestimate the scope of what you’re trying to accomplish, or you’ll set yourself up to be disappointed when the project isn’t complete at the end of the afternoon. Take delight in incremental progress, and stick with the plan until it’s complete. Think how proud you’ll be when you’re truly done!

Mistake #3: Premature “keep” decisions

Once you begin sorting, you’ll find yourself touching everything in the room. Each object grabs your attention, and they’re all saying, “Keep me!” It’s easy to get bogged down in trying to decide what to keep as you touch each object. It may seem efficient to make your keep decisions at this stage, but it’s not—for two reasons. First, you’ll tend to get fatigued by continuous decision-making, and you’ll want to shut down. Second, you’ll keep too much because until you get through the initial sorting, you’re not choosing based on the whole picture of everything you own.

The Clutter Fairy alternative: Don’t confuse sorting with decision-making. Your first step is to sort the whole room, gathering like with like, pulling out items you can readily identify as trash or recycling. Stay focused on the task of sorting the entire contents of the room before you make keep decisions. Then process each pile and make keep decisions, also adding to your trash, recycle, and relocate piles. This sort-first, decide-second process will yield sensible, informed keep decisions, and the volume of what you keep will almost certainly be smaller.

Mistake #2: Keeping things for the wrong reasons

What’s even worse than making keep decisions prematurely? Keeping things for the wrong reason. For example, you throw something on the keep pile “because it was a gift.” Are you sure you want to make space for something not because you like it, or use it, or even want it, but for no other reason than that it was a gift? That’s not a good enough reason for it to take up your valuable space and attention. Another bad reason for keep decisions is cost. You don’t have to compound an expensive buying mistake with a bad keep decision.

The Clutter Fairy alternative: Your goal is to “thin the herd.” Don’t manufacture reasons to keep things, or you might as well not be trying to organize. Be truthful about what you like, what you will use—not just might use—and what genuinely suits your lifestyle. If something doesn’t make the cut, get rid of it in favor of things that do. Don’t waste your valuable time storing, living with, and working around a bunch of stuff you don’t really love.

Mistake #1: Deciding not to decide

If all you’re doing is putting the same stuff in new places, you’re wasting time and effort. Sometimes you find that you can’t decide whether to keep an item, so you put it back on the pile. All you’ve really done is made an unjustified keep decision, postponing your pain to another day. Do you want to go through this whole process again later? I doubt it!

The Clutter Fairy alternative: Put aside the item that trips you up for the moment, and move on to something else that you can decide about. Don’t let one problematic item stop the great progress you’re making. Tackle some easy decisions first, and your success will give you strength to make harder choices. At the very least, you’ll reduce the pile that needs your attention from what it would have been if you’d let that one hard decision stop you in your tracks. It’s okay if you have to spread out the tough decisions over a few days. Your ultimate goal is to make good keep decisions based on what’s truly part of your lifestyle—then let the rest go.

This year’s recession news is a surprising silent partner in my campaign against clutter. It’s a lot easier to sell the idea of clutter-conscious gift giving when so many of us are feeling the pinch of an economy in turmoil. But although I’m grateful for any help I can get in raising clutter consciousness, I don’t want to push people to change just because they feel panicky about money. Conscientious giving shouldn’t have to be a painful discipline to regain control—an unreasonable fiscal “diet.” (Some of us know too well that diets fail unless they’re sensible and sustainable.) Clutter-conscious giving needs to become a mindset, a philosophy, a way of looking at life that reprioritizes what’s most important, in the flush times and the lean years.

Every good organizer will tell you that life is not about stuff. The real substance of life is whatever you’re passionate about—your family, your career, your hobby, your sport, your recreation, your spirituality, your friends—in whatever form those passions take for you. Sure, some stuff is required to function and live, but it’s not the stuff that generates the joy in your life.

Yet much of our gift-giving tradition is focused on giving material, physical symbols of the emotional attachment you feel to people in your life. The purpose of the gift is to express a sentiment, to say “You’re an important part of my life,” or “You helped me during the year, and I’m grateful,” or “You’re a valuable customer, and we appreciate your business.”

In this year, when spending a lot of money seems imprudent, why not break with the stuff tradition and express your emotions in a different way? Toward that end, I want to take a look at some more creative non-stuff-generating ways of giving gifts this year.

Let’s start with effort. Consider giving away the fruits of your labor. As a perfect example, I’ll start by confessing that I’m a horrible cook—the kitchen is not my area of expertise. When I’m offered the opportunity to eat someone else’s home-cooked meals, I jump on it! I have many friends who take delight in cooking, and I’m often a happy beneficiary of their talents. For me, it would be a real treat to receive a homemade meal as a gift. How about some soup to put in the freezer, some homemade muffins, gazpacho, or meat sauce for pasta?

While my mother was here for a visit last year, I was sick for a few days, and she cooked up a great big pot roast with potatoes and carrots. I ate it for days after she went home, and every bite reminded me of the love and concern that went into its preparation.

Think about a talent you happily indulge, and give the results of your art or craft or other enjoyable work as a gift this year. Almost anything you enjoy doing can be turned into a wonderful gift to those who don’t enjoy doing it.

Next on our alternative gift idea list: time. You probably have at least a little to spare, especially if you’re cutting back on holiday shopping, right? One idea is to offer your time in support of someone else’s charitable project, or in their honor. You’ve probably given money to a charity in someone’s name, but this year, what about volunteering your time at someone’s favorite charity instead? Spend two hours furthering the charitable purpose, and send a card to tell the recipient about having given this gift of yourself. You don’t necessarily have to do the work during the holiday season—commit to helping out in January when charities face a tougher time recruiting volunteers.

For friends closer to home, offer your time directly as a gift. Promise to spend a day in the spring helping to clean out your friend’s garage, plant a garden, or clear clutter from the closet. Maybe you can babysit a few nights, or give away rides to and from the airport. For any way you can imagine providing help and support to a friend, offer them that for the holidays! A holiday gift for future delivery will be a great treat for any busy adult with a crazy schedule. And a prearranged promise of time makes it easier to ask for help when your loved one needs it. You can make your gift of time tangible by simply writing a personal note inside a holiday greeting card, or get creative and design your own “gift certificate” with your computer and printer.

You can also give the gift of your attention. We all have busy schedules these days, and we don’t always make as much time for our friends as we could. Call someone on your gift list, and if she’s not free to talk right then, make a firm “appointment” to call back at a time that’s good for both of you—and then listen with everything you’ve got! Make plans to see someone during the holidays and give him the gift of your attention. Think about people you’ve missed lately, and meet for dinner or drinks. The venue and the price tag aren’t nearly as important as the precious gift of your companionship. If you have the means, pick up the tab with a cheerful “happy holidays” (or another appropriate wish, of course) at the end of an evening of reminiscing and catching up, and your friend will feel gifted indeed!

The bonus of these gift-giving alternatives: the guarantee that you’re creating no future clutter for anyone! The recipients will think of you fondly instead of staring at the gift wondering, “Where am I going to keep this?” And you’ll enjoy the impact these ideas have on your holiday budget. Try them, and see if you can’t start a new holiday tradition this year that supports your pocketbook, aligns with a clutter-conquering philosophy, and keep you mindful of what’s most important in your life—the love you give and receive.

I know there are times when giving material things is called for. My little five-year-old niece and nine-year-old nephew are too young to understand a gift certificate, and that means sometimes I still have to buy stuff. Even so, I can mitigate the clutter impact by asking my sister for specific gift recommendations. She tells me what to buy—name, item, store—and I buy exactly that item. That means the gift is parent-approved and kid-desired. My gift will get used or played with, not immediately relegated to the back of the closet.

For the grown-ups in my life, the same principle can be applied. When I want to give a thing, I make sure it’s something the recipient wants by asking for a specific list of desired gifts. My family publishes gift lists and sends them out to everyone to shop from. That means each person gets something he really wants and not another bad guess on my part.

Even though I use gift lists to steer my gift buying, as often as possible I try to give time instead. I give gift certificates for services—like a trip to my mom’s favorite nail salon, or a spa treatment for my little sister. Once we gave my brother-in-law a chance to drive a race car at a real racetrack. Movie passes are one of my family’s favorite stocking stuffers. We often use them during the week between Christmas and New Year to share movies while we’re all together. Sure, we could each buy our own tickets to the movies, but somehow it’s more fun and nourishes that “holiday feeling” to use passes that we gave each other as gifts.

Another gift solution that circumvents the clutter question is consumable items like food and wine. Gift boxes and baskets are great as hostess gifts for your holiday visits, or to send to friends and family who are hosting guests. There are many companies now that send all kinds of perishable items in gifting arrangements. You can order steaks, chocolates, fruit, desserts, or appetizers—just about anything can be shipped to arrive fresh and appealing, packaged in a lovely gift wrapping. Food items won’t appeal to a child as a gift, but busy adults cooking for 12 all week will appreciate a gourmet dessert box or a spread of fancy cheese, sausage, and crackers to put out for noshing guests.

Each of us has something we’d love to have, but we pass it up because spending the money seems inappropriate for any of a million reasons. My dad’s favorite temptation is cigars! Every Christmas, I spend a lot of money on one fabulous box, because I know he won’t spend money on expensive cigars. He loves his annual treat!

Adults can appreciate the gift of an experience instead of a material thing. Find out what special experience appeals to someone on your shopping list. If it’s an expensive gift, consider pooling your resources with friends or family members. What about a vacation, a hotel stay for the weekend, or a workshop to learn more about a favorite hobby? I guarantee that if you ask, everyone in your life has an experience she wants to have for which she won’t spend the money herself. Give that gift and she’ll remember it for a lifetime.