Decluttering and organizing get me every time. Just like healthy eating and exercise, I love the results, but the process is killer. It’s just another one of those things that takes effort. And the results don’t seem to last. I often blame it on the fact that we have so many people living in the house, but that’s not really it. The real it is that we’re not all invested in taking the time every day to do what needs to be done to keep the house in great shape. Some of it starts with me. I’ve preached to the kids that some jobs are worth doing really well, and sometimes that’s good enough is acceptable. Heck, that concept is important enough to me that it was one of my earliest blog posts.

The consequences of such a philosophy can catch up with us if we’re willing to say enough too much. Then things start to slip and the reality hits that we have to do a great big job of declutting, cleaning, and organizing. Because we’ve hosted a family dinner for 50+ people at Christmas for many years, the bug to get everything in order hits about Thanksgiving and the tension builds for the next couple of weeks.

The same thing hits near the end of the school year, and then again just before school starts. I want everything to be clean and sparkly for the next phase (be it Summer or School) that’s in our cycle. So, regular as clockwork, I dig into my organizing resources and read up on several websites and blogs about organizing three times a year (November, May, and August).

While reading the OrganizedHome blog post a couple of thoughts crept into my head. The over-riding thought was that I really want to be like Cynthia Ewer, the author of the post. I want to strategically approach the clutter in the house, attack it, and then disperse it to where it’s supposed to lay. I’ve even tried to apply my F.C.E.C. (Focus Commit Execute Complete) model to my decluttering. But I’ve also come to a realization that I’m not that great at approaching clutter this way.

I read the book Organize Your Life & Get Rid of Clutter by Ab Jackson and adapted his methodology. The OrganizedHome article alludes to the same approach at the beginning with her reference to The Four-Box Method of decluttering. My version of Ab’s approach is Five Boxes and a List. When I get my butt in gear and actually collect myself enough to do things right, this is what I use. The five boxes are:

• Route It – items out of place in that space needing to go elsewhere
• Give It – items in good repair to be donated
• Store It – items that will be used in a reasonable time frame
• Toss It – trash
• Figure It Out – items I can’t figure out what to do with right now

The list collects those ideas and thoughts that occur while doing the decluttering.

The system is only successful if I do the following:

1. Pick a limited space to work in. If an entire room is a disaster, then I pick part of the room
2. Set a time limit to get done
3. Use a timer to track the time…a kitchen timer that’s loud and dings works for me
4. Set the time limit short enough that I’m not exhausted when done
5. I limit the number of spaces that I try to do in a day or weekend to a small number
6. Resolve all the items that end up in the boxes at the end of the session

When I’ve followed those rules and used the five boxes and a list I’ve worked miracles. But as I mentioned, I’m not good about using the process as much as I’d like. I’ve probably done it a dozen times since I came up with the whole plan…in 2010.

That means that when we have to get the house in order, I must use another plan. Actually, I use two. The first one I’m not very proud of. It’s the don’t do anything plan. I used to avoid this one like the plague. It implied failure and laziness, and people saw how bad our house could get. Unfortunately, I’ve been using that one more and more. I used to freak out if my Mom (the neatest person I’ve ever met) was coming over. I would work like crazy to make the house perfect. Now I don’t fret as much. It still bothers me, but I’ve learned to cope with it.

The second method is illustrated in the OrganizedHome article: Box and Banish. I’m really good at grabbing a box, clearing off surfaces, and stowing the box in an out-of-the-way place. The real reason that this post is being written today is that I’m pretty much running out of places to banish boxes. Christmas 2011 and 2012 led to banishment to my closet. While it’s a big, walk-in closet…there is a limit to what can be kept there. I believe that I’ve exceeded that limit. Worse than that, I haven’t even opened the boxes since their banishment, so I have no idea what’s in them. The two prior years all banishment went to the basement. Due to a rapid change in weather, I had to go into one of the furnace rooms and move a bunch of stuff to adjust some furnace settings. An hour of moving things around to get to the furnace was a bit much.

So, my required taste for David Allen’s Getting Things Done has led me to create a project for processing the banished items. It also caused me to create a project for getting the house in order for Christmas. I have 19 days to get the house ready, so it may be another Box and Banish year…but then I’m attacking all the banished items. I haven’t decided on a reasonable end-date, but I’m open to nagging in the comments to remind me that I need to get this project done.

So there it is. I’m not perfect. I want a perfect home, but I’d settle for an OK home that’s comfortable for everybody. I hate the feeling of C.H.A.O.S. that our Hectic lives have engendered. Where C.H.A.O.S. stands for Can’t Have Anybody Over Syndrome. I don’t like that feeling in the pit of my stomach when the doorbell rings and I look around at our daily mess.

So I’m throwing it out there. It’s time to start on another long project and get the house in order. How about you?