The Clutter Fairy Blog

interior, modern design

Organizing room by room: the bathroom

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The Clutter Fairy breaks down the causes of restroom clutter and offers a step-by-step strategy for reclaiming bathroom space. She also revisits tricks for managing cast-off clothing.
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Interior of modern bedroom with double bed

Organizing room by room: the master bedroom

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The Clutter Fairy suggests strategies for transforming your master bedroom from a stress-inducing mess into a peaceful sanctuary. Viewers introduce her to the buzzwords “floordrobe,” “floorage,” and “fledroom.”
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Empty two-car garage

Organizing room by room: the garage

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The Clutter Fairy offers a step-by-step strategy for reclaiming the usable space in your garage—or other storage space of last resort. She also talks about examining the rationalizations we use for keeping too much stuff, such as “I’m keeping this for my family.”
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Desk, gadgets and office supplies. Flat lay. Copy space.

Organizing room by room: the home office

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The Clutter Fairy offers a step-by-step strategy for organizing your home office space. She also answers viewer and listener questions.
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Fresh lemons on wooden counter

Make lemonade: Use stay-at-home time to improve yourself and your space

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The Clutter Fairy reflects on ways people are making the best of the COVID-19 lockdown. She also answers viewer and listener questions.
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Green sprout emerging from black soil

Life-changing effects of decluttering

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The Clutter Fairy describes potential life-changing effects of decluttering—small (and large) ways in which your life might be different after organizing. She also discusses the delicate balance between stuff from your past and the needs of your present life.
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Blurry picture of white van

Moving on a tight schedule | More self-talk

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The Clutter Fairy offers strategies for expediting your sorting and packing project when you’re under pressure to move house in a short timeframe. She also revisits self-talk for an uncluttered lifestyle.
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Red ant rolling round object up tree limb

Resistance to organizing and ways to overcome it

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The Clutter Fairy tackles the question, “Why, when I have so much time on my hands, am I still not motivated to organize?” She identifies sources of our resistance to organizing and ways to overcome it.
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Empty toilet paper roll on pink bathroom wall

Keep organizing projects on track in challenging times

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The Clutter Fairy discusses strategies for keeping your organizing projects on track in challenging times. She offers advice for minimizing stress and increasing cooperation for all of us who’ve found ourselves suddenly homebound.
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Stack of disorganized papers

Sorting paper to get ready for tax time

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The Clutter Fairy offers strategies for getting paper piles under control in preparation for filing tax returns. She shares advice for clearing your paper backlog and creating systems to manage paper on a day-to-day basis.
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Self-talk for an uncluttered lifestyle

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The Clutter Fairy suggests rethinking the way we talk about ourselves and our clutter in order to shift our habits and behaviors. She also talks about more creative uses for zip-lock bags in organizing.
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Woman crouching in cardboard box

Organizing tight spaces | Favorite tools and materials

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The Clutter Fairy offers tips for organizing tight spaces—stuffed closets, packed attics, and bulging basements. She also talks about a few of her favorite organizing tools and materials.
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Shopping cart against the background

Alternatives to buying stuff | Digital decluttering routines

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The Clutter Fairy discusses alternatives to buying more stuff, such as borrowing from or sharing items with family and friends; making use of lending libraries, rental stores, and maker spaces; and adjusting our thinking about what we need to own.
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Pile of question mark blocks

Your questions: Reducing collections | Other people’s opinions

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The Clutter Fairy responds to viewer and listener questions about dealing with other people’s input on your organizing projects, reducing your collections, and more.
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Abstract image of square shapes on blue-purple background

Digital decluttering

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The Clutter Fairy tackles digital clutter—the accumulation of data beyond what we can reasonably keep and manage. She talks about common sources of digital clutter to watch out for and offers strategies for getting them under control.
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Life cycle of a maple leaf through the seasons

The clutter life-cycle | Book review: Swedish death cleaning | Packrat heritage

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The Clutter Fairy explores the “clutter life-cycle”—a way of framing the psychological issues around clutter in terms of the decision-making that happens throughout the life-cycle of a possession. She also responds to viewer feedback and reviews the 2018 book, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning.
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Tiny house with shadow of much larger house

Declutter for downsizing | White-elephant trunk | The math of downsizing

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The Clutter Fairy examines the situations that lead us to downsize and offers guidance on key areas of our homes and lives where we can look for opportunities to downsize collections. She also responds to viewer questions and feedback and offers her Tip of the Week on “the math of downsizing.”
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Hands holding black-and-white family photos on wooden background

Preserving family history | The white elephant table | Maintaining organizing momentum

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The Clutter Fairy takes a deeper dive into the topic of preserving family photos, videos, and stories to pass down. We also discuss using a “white elephant” exchange to share unwanted items with people who might get more use out of them than you do, and offer strategies to keep moving—or get moving again—if you’re struggling to make progress on your organizing goals.
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Closeup of folded hands of an old woman

Clutter and aging | Family photos and videos | “Where do I start?”

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The Clutter Fairy explores clutter-related issues that arise with aging and suggests strategies that you and your family can adopt to ease the burden of future clutter. We address viewer questions about how to get started decluttering when the project seems overwhelming and discuss ideas for storing and sharing precious family photos and videos.
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Open daily planner book with pen

Organizing with a planner | Story-editing & small habits recap | “One in, one out”

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The Clutter Fairy offers strategies for using a daily planner to keep your organizing projects moving forward, revisits the topics of “story-editing” and cultivating small habits, offers our Tip of the Week (“One in, one out”), and gives a quick preview of an upcoming topic: Clutter & Aging.
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