Many of us recognize the negative impact of clutter on our comfort, convenience, and relationships, but feel powerless to begin the overwhelming effort that decluttering entails. Decluttering happens piece by piece, but we can’t get it done when our stuff provokes conflicting emotions. Sometimes the reasonable voice gets drowned out by the panicked impulse to keep everything or defer every decision for another day.

For our January 2018 meeting of the Houston Clutter Coaching Meetup Group, we’ll suggest ways to set aside the emotional responses that stand in the way of the work of decluttering in favor of practical techniques that allow us to move forward. We’ll talk about cultivating detachment and objectivity by creating algorithms—rules to filter our stuff to fit our spaces and our present lives. We’ll offer examples of criteria you can apply to your own collections, or that will guide you as you define your own practical rules.