7 Ways to Deal with your Clutter

Did you know there are 7 ways that you can deal with your Clutter?

Thanks to the TV programmes about decluttering and hoardings, many people incorrectly assume there are only a few ways to deal with a clutter problem, but that’s not true.

Scroll through the 7 options listed below that are actually available to you.

Option 1 – Do Nothing FREE!

You could of course do nothing and just hope that – by magic – either it disappears over night or some magic wand or magic tardis storage solution becomes available in the shops that you can buy and make it all disappear without you every having to do anything or make any decisions about the things in it. ​

Of course this is the most popular choice, and is the one that will eventually lead to you becoming a hoarder. ​

Advantages:

  1. Costs nothing
  2. Requites no energy
  3. Requires no time
  4. Avoids you having to make decisions about your clutter
  5. Easy to do

​Disadvantages:

  1. Gets you no closer to your clutter free goal
  2. The Clutter continues to grow because you haven’t stoppped the accumulation
  3. You’ll probably run out of space in your home and have to consider one of the other options eventually
  4. You’re not creating the new habits you need to stay Clutter Free Forever.

Option 2 – Ask Friends and Family to Help

FREE! (or maybe a meal out or a return favour in the future).

You may have already tried this one already and discovered that it rarely ends well.

Friends and family who haven’t had a clutter challenge can never know what it’s like to feel under pressure to make quick and instant decisions about things you may not have seen for months or years.

Standing there with a bag, encouraging you by reasoning that you don’t need that thing in your hand, you can live with out it, just put it in the bag! – doesn’t help does it? ​

You may think that having someone else there to ‘encourage’ you to throw things away will help, but in reality it rarely does. ​

Different priorities, different visions of how a Clutter Free Life will look causes tension, and often offers of help do not come again. ​

Advantages:

  1. It’s usually free
  2. Getting a date in the diary for friends or family to come round and help you does makes you confront the clutter rather than avoid / procrastinate
  3. People want to help because they care about you and may know how much stress your clutter causes you

Disadvantages:

  1. It rarely leads to progress.
  2. You may find yourself saying what you think they want to hear to please them, rather than making a decision you are happy with.
  3. You may say you’ll get rid of the clutter so you can actually go through the bags of rubbish / trash once they’ve left and take out everything you told them could go
  4. It can cause resentment and family fall-outs
  5. You’re not dealing with the accumulation of clutter so you’ll probably replace it within 6 months.
  6. You’re not creating the new habits you need to stay Clutter Free Forever.​

Option 3 – Buy Storage Solutions

From £10 / $10 to £1,000’s / $1,000’s

This is a popular option because people mistakenly think that they have their clutter because they don’t have enough storage. ​

WRONG. ​

However, this is a good option if you like shopping, like pretty storage solutions and want to make your home and your clutter look different. ​

Advantages:

  1. Makes you feel like you’re doing something positive about your clutter
  2. It can be fun finding new and unusual storage solutions
  3. Fulfills a love of shopping, spending money and accumulating ‘stuff’
  4. Enables you to hide some of your clutter in the new storage solution so it doesn’t look so bad
  5. The only decision you have to make is what’s going to go in the new storage solution
  6. Helps you avoid making decisions about what you actually NEED that’s in your clutter

Disadvantages:

  1. Costs Money
  2. Actually increases the amount of things in your home and therefore decreases the amount of space in your home
  3. Doesn’t actually get anything out of your home
  4. You’re not dealing with the accumulation of clutter so you’ll probably replace it within 6 months.
  5. You’re not creating the new habits you need to stay Clutter Free Forever.

Option 4 – Put your Clutter in Self Storage

Expect to pay from £50 / $50 per month = £600 / $600 per year

Putting your Clutter in a self storage unit is the quickest way to do that without having to make any decisions on what you NEED to keep.

Sometimes the quickest and easiest thing to do is to get the clutter out of your home quickly.

What seem like good offers make it easy, and we tell ourselves that we’ll feel more able / have more time to go through it making decisions if it’s not in our home. ​

WRONG.

​32% of Clare’s private clients have self storage units when they start getting her help and all that’s happened is that they’ve got some of the clutter ‘out of sight, out of mind’ by putting it in self storage, telling themselves they’ll only have it in there for a few months, set up the direct debit for the monthly payments, then forgotten about it.

Meanwhile, because they haven’t dealt with the accumulation of clutter, the space they created in their home gets full of NEW clutter. ​

Advantages:

  1. It’s a quick fix solution to your clutter challenge.
  2. Many self storage companies offer a ‘collection’ service to help you move your clutter to their facility
  3. They have some great offers for the first month / 6 months
  4. You don’t have to keep looking at the clutter
  5. You can create a lot of space in your home quickly

Disadvantages:

  1. It’s going to cost you money
  2. For most people it’s a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ and forgotten about
  3. Most Clutterholics fill the space you create with NEW Clutter within 6 months of putting your clutter in storage
  4. You will need to make time to go through the things in storage if you don’t want to pay the monthly fee indefinitely
  5. You’re not dealing with the accumulation of clutter so you’ll probably replace it within 6 months.
  6. You’re not creating the new habits you need to stay Clutter Free Forever.

Option 5 – Get a Skip / Dumpster

From £100 $150

Just a quick a solution as putting your clutter in self storage, but without the ongoing costs, is the option to get a skip / dumpster and put all your clutter in there.

This helps avoid the need to make decisions and will create space quickly and relatively easy (or so you may think).

WRONG.

​If it were that easy and quick to get rid of your clutter, surely you would have put it all out for the rubbish / trash by now?

This is an option that we NEVER recommend. ​

Advantages:

  1. Gets results quickly
  2. Only a one off cost

Disadvantages:

  1. You almost certainly won’t be able to put your clutter in the skip / dumpster without sorting through it first
  2. If you throw away paperwork without shredding it first, you may be opening yourself up to the possibility of identity theft
  3. You’re not dealing with the accumulation of clutter so you’ll probably replace it within 6 months.
  4. You’re not creating the new habits you need to stay Clutter Free Forever.

Option 6 – Use a Professional Organiser

From £40 / $70 per hour

There are many professionals out there who specialise in decluttering and organising people and their home. ​

Advantages:

  1. You can get results quickly.
  2. They offer an extra pair of hands so you can sort through your clutter quicker.
  3. They can become a member of a voluntary membership organisation and agree to work under a ‘Code of Conduct’.
  4. Many focus on the organisation of a room so will help you source storage solutions so you can keep as much of your clutter as possible.
  5. They are cheaper than Option 7…….

Disadvantages:

  1. No personal, direct experience of having had a clutter challenge is required to become a Professional working with people who have a clutter challenge. If they had personal experience of clutter, they’d know that reorganising ‘stuff’ doesn’t help
  2. Most focus on the reorganising aspect of declutter, not the actual decluttering and decision making
  3. Many will tell you what you ‘should’ do with items in your clutter – some will also go through your clutter with you making the decisions for you
  4. They don’t address the root cause of the clutter problem – the accumulation and decision making – just the symptom and the organisation
  5. Most don’t offer a long term solution to your clutter challenge i.e. teach you how to
  6. Most only use the ‘keep’, ‘chuck’, ‘charity’ method and don’t teach you how to make decisions safely
  7. They don’t help you create the long term habits you need to stay Clutter Free Forever
  8. Many won’t take away unwanted clutter for you and distribute it to charities, recycling, landfill etc.
  9. Most only work in a very limited geographical location
  10. Most only work with a client in the home – they don’t provide ongoing services and intensive support and guidance once they have left the home (because they are not helping the client achieve long term behavioral change)

Please note: The above advantages are generalisations and may not apply to all professionals who work in this area.

Option 7 – Clutter Clearing Journey

from £997 / $127 a month

If you know that your successful Clutter Clearing requires you to make decisions and make time to ‘do the doing’, then it might be time to consider getting help from a Former Clutterholic with 18 years experience of helping people just like you. ​ Clare helps people declutter differently.

Because Clare’s been in a similar position to where you probably are right now she knows that re-organising the clutter, focusing on storage solutions and having a blitz doesn’t last.

Clare knows that to get real, meaningful, lasting change and become Clutter Free FOREVER – so you never again have to go through this again, takes time. ​ Just as we can all go on a crash diet and loose weight, we can have a quick and intense blitz on the clutter and clear it quickly.

But just as a crash diet rarely lasts beyond our goal (because as soon as we come off the crash diet and eat normally again the weight comes back), so too the clutter grows back after a blitz. ​ Clare helps people who know a blitz, reorganisation and storage aren’t the solution to a Clutter Challenge in the long term.

Clare works with people who don’t want their Clutter Clearing to take over their lives, who may need to get help in secret, and who know that meaningful, lasting Clutter Clearing is a Journey that takes time, commitment and the creation of new habits. ​

Advantages:

  1. Clare has overcome her own Clutter Challenge so has personal direct experience of dealing with a clutter problem
  2. Clare is qualified in a worldwide recognised coaching technique called NLP. This means she has the necessary skills and experience to be able to guide, support and advice you in a safe way
  3. Clare has worked with over 1,000 since 2001 (when she cleared her own clutter and discovered the Clutter Clearing Process)
  4. Clare is not geographically restricted – she is able to work with people all over the world – UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, Europe
  5. If you need to you can have your help with Clare in secret – you either travel to Clare’s home each week for your classes, or you have a private telephone / skype calls
  6. if you have a package of Clare’s ‘Help in the Home’ service (available in the UK and worldwide) it is Clare who will come to your home – not someone who works for her and has less experience or knowledge
  7. Clare teaches you a method of ‘HOW’ to declutter in a way that is safe and enables you to make decisions quickly and easily
  8. Clare’s method – the Clutter Clearing Process – enables you to clear the backlog of clutter AND create the new habits you need to stay Clutter Free FOREVER
  9. Clare offers 12 week courses that fit around school term times, ensuring you create and maintain momentum whilst also having access to her advice, guidance and support
  10. Clare’s help is available on a 1-2-1 basis OR there are packages available for Group help if you would prefer to know you’re not alone on this Journey
  11. Clare provides fixed price courses of help so you know exactly how much your package of help will cost before you start your Clutter Clearing Journey – no hidden costs!
  12. You can spread your payments for any Clutter College Courses with Clare to help make it easier to get the help you need to succeed
  13. Clare is recognised as an expert in the field of decluttering – she has been featured on BBC Breakfast TV in the UK

Disadvantages:

  • Clare will not help people have a quick blitz
  • Starting your Clutter Clearing Journey is not the quick or easy option – there will be highs and lows. However, with Clare’s help you WILL succeed at clearing your backlog of clutter AND learning as you do so how to keep your home Clutter Free Forever.
  • There is often a waiting list for her private 1-2-1 services
  • You will need to be able to commit to a minimum of a minimum of 12 months with your Clutter Clearing Journey
  • Clare is an expert in decluttering, not an expert on storage solutions because 90% of her clients do not need additional storage once they have decluttered
  • You will have to be determined, persistent and consistent to succeed – just like Clare was when she overcame her Clutter Challenge back in 2001.
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