My Personal Top 10 Cleanup & Declutter Tips: Go After Those Stacks and Piles! Find Your Floor Again!

All right. Hi everybody. Hope you'll forgive the slightly casual getup, uh, with this new video. Uh, but I'm actually working on what I'm talking about in the video today. Uh, so I've actually been doing some work, uh, related to getting myself cleaned up and decluttered here, both in my home and my home office. Uh, a little backstory on this. I just got back from my first major trip that I've done via air since the beginning of the pandemic over a year ago. And so coming back from the trip, unpacked the luggage, cleaned up the car, cleaned up the home office, got caught up on email, got the laundry started, and that whole momentum thing started rolling. And then next thing you know, I'm actually cleaning out our upstairs closet, switching out all of the snow pants and winter coats and jackets for all of the spring sweaters and rain jackets. Hey, and got everything put into storage. And, you know, that's one of the things is, you know, this is sort of an interesting thing. A lot of people dread doing cleanup work, decluttering, reorganizing, until they get going doing it. And then once you get doing it, it becomes a little bit addictive. Because you can actually see major progress once you dive in. So let me give you my top 10 tips for giving you some motivation to start your own spring cleaning. All right, number 1, and this is the classic that I teach in all of my programs. It's a classic that I learned like 30 years ago, I believe, from David Allen, who wrote the book Getting Things Done, but it's been around a lot longer than that. It's called the one touch, one look rule. And it's a really simple thing. It says if you pick something up, if you touch it, you just made a contract with yourself that you're not going to stop looking at it until you decide what you need to do with it. And so this is the overriding strategy that can help you really knock out your clutter. If you actually go so far as to picking something up, you've now made a contract with yourself that you need to make a decision what you're going to do with it. And if it's simply something out of place, or if it's something that's looking for a place to be, That is your decision. Where should this go? If there's not a good place for it to go, where can I make it go? We're going to talk about that one a little bit later, but the key point is what do I need to do now? If it's something that's in process, then maybe you either get it on your task list or calendar, or you just get it done so you can finally get rid of that thing. But if you want to knock out the clutter, the very first tip that I'm going to recommend is you've got to get much better at making decisions, especially on low-value, low-risk items. If you see it's sort of a low-value item, a low-risk item, it's not critically important right now, then don't fret over it and don't think about it too much. Get it to its place or get it out. Step number 2, the get rid of it strategy. And this is one of my favorite tips. I think I learned this one from Don Aslett, who wrote Clutter's Last Stand, and it's a really good rule for helping you understand whether you should own something or not own something. It's called the twice-a-year rule. And it's been something that's really helped me with getting rid of stuff. And I actually need to sort of roll through the house here and the garage again pretty soon to go through this. What the twice-a-year rule basically says is this: if you don't actively use something at least twice a year, you shouldn't own it in the first place. And if you need it, you should rent it. So while you're thinking about buying a boat, you're going to use it at least twice this summer. If not, maybe you go rent the boat. And the whole premise of this is that a lot of us start gathering stuff that we never touch or use, and then it starts filling up storage. And in his book, he made a really interesting thing: you're paying for that storage in terms of floor space. Now what happens is, you know, they always say Americans have a bit of a silly habit. We buy a really big empty house and then we spend the rest of our lives filling it up with stuff we never touch or use. And I just want to challenge you on that. You want to declutter in both work and life. Don't have stuff you're not actively using. And periodically, every few years or so, go through and see if there's things that you used to use that you've now moved on to different things. And then it might be time to consider, is it time to let those things go? All right, so that's twice a year rule. Now another one, this is just a really solid rule: everything's got to have a home. Now when I say a home, a place where it belongs. And so part of your decision-making process is where should this be when it's called put away. And the key thing about— there's two reasons you want to have home. One, it just naturally reduces the clutter. It's stuff's not just all over the place, haphazard.. But the other critical reason that things have a home is that you can find them when you need them. Um, and the classic example, we built a cubby right by the entry door to our house, and that's where I always put my keys to my car. Then I'm not scrambling looking for the keys, because if I'm doing it right, it's there. And I've even made a deal with my other family members, hey, if you ever see my keys out of place, can you please just do me the favor and go move them where they belong? So that way I won't lose my mind when I can't find them, you know. So try to think about that, but then take that another level by looking at anything that's clutter that's around you, both in your office or at home, and ask yourself, does this place need a home? What is the home? If there's not a home, where should the home be? Make homes for your items. And remember, if you combine this with the twice a year rule, it's really interesting. If you're using at least twice a year and you know it's home, you're going to get pretty adept at knowing where your stuff is and maybe even using it more often because you know where you put it. Number 4: Learn and know all of your options for local disposal, donation, and recycling. It's kind of hard to get rid of stuff you don't know where to get rid of it. And, um, you know, one of the things that I wish I would have done a little bit sooner when we first moved here to East Lansing, Michigan was do some research on all of the options that were available because I've become pretty good, but it took me like, you know, 10 to 15 years to get pretty good at knowing how to get rid of my stuff. Now I actually am putting a PDF for my local friends, but it might give you ideas even if you don't live in the local community where I'm taking everything. And actually, if you live here locally and you know something that I don't know that needs to be added to my list, please let me know. That would be Very, very useful. All right, uh, number 5: set up dedicated storage for seasonal items. Now this is interesting. I told you about how I moved the winter stuff downstairs into storage and I moved the spring jackets and sweaters upstairs into the active closet. A couple weeks ago we had a nice beautiful stretch of weather. I did the same thing by taking all of our holiday decorations and lights that were in boxes in the back of the garage Uh, move the car out. I set up— I actually hired a handyman to, um, you know, modify the attic of our garage to turn it into extra storage. It was sort of a dead space. And that, I guess, is a mini tip right there. Look for dead spaces in your home that you might be able to turn into some sort of a storage and organization space. Actually had him install plywood floors in the already set up attic area, put in a drop panel door, and that's where I put all my seasonal stuff. Um, you know, like all of our Christmas decorations, all of our Halloween decorations, um, all of our, uh, you know, like patio umbrellas from— for the summertime, um, even things like life jackets for the boat, you know, just stuff that you need it down in the active area when it's the active time of the year. But then when it's not the active time of the year, you got a place to put put it so it's out of the way, and you're switching it if you live in a place where there's a change of seasons. We also have the same kind of storage in the back of our basement for the indoor stuff. So basically, I've got all the outdoor stuff up in the garage storage, and the indoor stuff is in a storage area, and it just flips and rolls through the year. Um, so think about whether you've got a dedicated plan for seasonal storage and seasonal items, and if not, that would be a really good plan for you to look into and formalize a little bit. Now, I said the pick and roll— I said the flip and roll on the last time. Now I'm going to talk about some basketball here. No, no, we're not talking about basketball. What we're talking about is pick an area of your house. There's always going to be someplace that needs a cleanup or decluttering. Everybody's got it. It's never going to stop, okay? Humans are really good at gathering things, and depending on your life stage, you get different things. Uh, so what I recommend that you do is you make this just a habit. There's always a target, and you want to always find a target where you can go next, either at work or at home or both, of what you're going to clean up next. Maybe it's a drawer at your office desk. Maybe it's that stack of stuff you know needs to be filed or shredded or scanned. Uh, maybe it's, you know, that, uh, storage area behind the car in the garage. Maybe it's a closet upstairs in the bedroom. Pick a place, make that dedicated focus target, do one at a time, and then roll to the next. And make it just a constant habit that you're rolling through both your workspace, maybe your electronic files, Maybe your workstation area or office, maybe different places in your home, interior and exterior, and just roll through it constantly so that you're always fighting back the gathering of the clutter. Now, the other thing that I might recommend, since we talked about this local donations and the pick and roll, is one of the things that my wife has gotten really good is there are basically places on social media now especially, I think, Facebook and maybe Instagram, where you can post if you've got stuff to either your local board or your neighborhood board or whatever it is, you know, the place where everybody gathers together and, um, just give stuff away. Uh, we have been very adept as kids have grown out of clothing or have stopped using certain toys of finding a new home for them where they can get a second life. And make another kid happy. And, you know, think about all of your stuff. Maybe you got landscaping that you did a redesign and downsized, and now you got hosta plants out at the end of your driveway. Let people know. I've been really good at giving away piles of wood. I can't really burn wood on my property, but there's other people that are a couple blocks away that have a really nice fire pit. They come and take all my excess wood when I do yard work. And so, you just post the stuff, put it out there, see what happens. I mean, you know, basically, social media is like a supersized free sign, like when you put it out in the end of your driveway, and it'll probably work pretty well. The other thing that I want you to think about with all of this is that it's probably a good habit to consider maybe investing half an hour to an hour to sometimes a couple hours every week just on cleanup, reorganization, clutter reduction. And the reason I call it for the payback— I actually think investing a little bit of time pretty much every week or so will give you a big-time payback because you won't get as buried by the clutter. But not only that, you're going to become better at finding your stuff more quickly, which means that time invested in having less clutter, being better organized, is time you'll get back by finding stuff more quickly later. You know, I just cleaned out my laptop bag, you know, because it looks like I'm going to start traveling again for, for some of my clients again pretty soon. I cleaned out my travel bag and got it a little bit better organized, which is going to help me when I get back on the road. And just even little 10-15 minute times like that. Benjamin Franklin has a really cool quote, I believe from Poor Richard's Almanac. I believe he said that every min spent— every minute spent organizing gives you back an hour later. And, you know, I don't know if it's an hour, but it definitely gives you time back when you clean up stuff, reorganize, and declutter, because it just makes you feel lighter and you can find your stuff faster. Uh, now this is— I'm getting close to the end. This is actually sort of a higher-level thing. Um, one thing that's interesting about your own clutter and your own mess is that you may stop seeing it. You may get so used to it that you don't even see that it's there. You know, there's that commercial that talks about being nose blind where you don't smell your smells anymore. Well, I could see you becoming clutter blind too, where it's like you've been living in it so long that now you don't notice it anymore. And just recently, you know, we took a family vacation for spring break. We had somebody come in and actually do a deep and thorough cleaning and reorganization of the house. We came back and it was like, oh my gosh, this is our house. It's actually a nice place because she got everything put away in a way that we hadn't done it in a while. You know, and, um, you know, the idea of hiring like maybe a professional organizer and, or just, you know, a really good, you know, person with a sharp eye that can come in and say, now, why do you have this? What is this here for? Maybe we could do this with this, or maybe this is something you could get rid of. That fresh set of eyes could be super helpful in terms of you being aware of the mess and clutter that you've created for yourself. Um, and then of course the final tip that I want to share— we're approaching one of these. We have a daughter who's about to move off to college for the first time. Uh, that's called a major life stage change, you know. And a lot of people, you know, you go from being living at home with the parents off to college. That's a big life stage change. Or off to your first job. Uh, then, you know, maybe you're you know, single, and then you become serious relationship, engaged, married, and you're, you know, dual income, no kids, maybe a dog, and you're suddenly got a baby in the house, suddenly you got 2 babies and one of them's getting bigger, suddenly you got little kids with all their stuff, and every single time you get a bunch of other stuff and people give you stuff. And if you keep all that stuff, that's how you get a really full back of your basement and garage and feel like the clutter is taking you over. And so look for those major life stage changes. You know, another one's if you move. You know, that's a wonderful time to greatly downsize all of your stuff. And, you know, there's always the joke about the people that they move from one house to another house after living in the previous house for 10 years and they finally get rid of the boxes from the first move that they never opened, you know. And I can guarantee you, we've got a few of those, you know. If you're not using it twice a year, donate it, get rid of it, recycle it, you know, do something. Get it out if you can. Um, and, uh, be ready for this, because if you do all of these things, you're going to have a chance to fight back the piles. Okay, now it's not, it's not going to be perfect. And like I said, I don't think it'll ever be done. But the more you do this, the more your kids will appreciate you when it's their turn to come clean out your house. When maybe it's time for you to move on to whatever that next life stage is, you know, so, so keep that in mind. And, you know, Hopefully this gives you a little bit of motivation to go after your own spring cleaning. I know that it's actually been sort of fun for me thinking about this because I have some things in my garage to go get rid of, probably next on my list. Thanks everybody, hope you had fun. Uh, for those of you who don't know, my name is Randall F. Dean, uh, and if you're new to my channel, uh, please, if you like the video, please give it a like. Um, please subscribe to the channel if you'd like to find out more about my full-length webinar programs that are, a lot of them now in online format, go visit my website randalldean.com. And also, if you'd like to get a whole slew of additional productivity PDFs on time management, email management, Outlook usage, Google usage, smartphone and tablet usage, reducing distraction, all that kind of stuff, send me an email randy@randalldean.com and put YouTube PDF in the subject line, and I'll send you a whole slew of bonus materials, including the cheat to my YouTube channel, which gives you links to all of my videos, which give you tips on many of the things I just mentioned. All right, and, uh, remember, that's electronic stuff, so won't create any stacks, piles, or clutter on your desk. Good luck to you. Hope you, hope you get rid of that mess now. Bye now.