Decluttering Your Home: Tips, Techniques and Trade Secrets

by Geralin Thomas

Overview

An organized, clutter-free home appeals to everyone. But where to begin? This useful guide provides fun, creative and painless ways to get started using the tips, techniques, quick fixes, and trade secrets used by professional organizers.

Decluttering Your Home shows how to save time, money, and energy. It takes the cluttered and distressed through the first steps in decluttering and gives common sorting strategies that work.

The chapters include:

• Clutter, Clutter Everywhere — The psychology of clutter; common sources of clutter; clutterer personality types.
• Household Clutter — Eliminate clutter and improve organization room by room throughout the entire home.

Each room feature includes numerous topics and tips, such as:

• How to use the dining room for other purposes without adding clutter; Creating a laundry system; Why making the bed every day is important; Creating "capsules" of clothing.
• Digital Clutter — Manage multiple devices, cord and cable clutter, organize electronic files and digital photos.
• Calendar Clutter — Time management strategies for the entire family, overcoming procrastination, knowing how and why to say no.
• Maintenance — Keep a newly organized life clutter-free.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781770855854
Publisher:	Firefly Books, Limited
Publication date:	10/13/2015
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	447,718
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 9.60(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Geralin Thomas specializes in home and home-office organizing. She's a public speaker and an instructor to professional organizers. For six seasons, she organized America's most cluttered homes on A and E's TV series, Hoarders. Her website metropolitanorganizing.com receives around 10,000 unique visitors per month.

Read an Excerpt

About this book

In recent times, reality TV shows highlighting hoarding tendencies have raised awareness about keeping too much stuff. As a result, decluttering and organizing are now trendy topics. You're with the in-crowd if you've started buying experiences in lieu of material gifts. The travel and hospitality industries are experiencing a boom in business from those who have grown weary of buying more "stuff" to "stuff" in their already "stuffed" homes, and who have cleaned up their calendars to make room for fun. Homeowners are still spending money, but instead of buying knickknacks and whatnots, they're choosing theater tickets, spa treatments and amusement-park passes.

People are eager to learn how to live with less, practice minimalism and enjoy a less stressful lifestyle. How to declutter and de-stress is the new hot topic that can be brought up in any conversation. It's as if decluttering is a sport, and everyone,
regardless of age, income or gender, is welcome to play along and beat clutter.

This book is a culmination of the best ideas I've learned about decluttering and organizing as both an on- and off-camera organizing expert. My goal in writing this book is to teach you how to transform your casa de C.H.A.O.S (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome) into casa de calm. I want to replace confusion with confidence. Life is better when we live in a well-ordered home that suits our lifestyle and expresses our personality. We are content when we create a hospitable habitat, one where we treasure our time spent.

With each chapter you'll find advice to help you decide what you can live with as well as what you can live without. Together, we'll create a house that looks attractive and feels inviting and comfortable, keeping only the items and activities that reflect you and what's most meaningful to you. The process of getting organized becomes much more pleasurable when it's viewed as an opportunity to let go of things, respecting who you are now, where you've been and where you want to be.

This book is filled with trade secrets, resources, tips, tools, tactics, techniques and organization revelations.

Table of Contents

Contents

Welcome to my world
About this book

01 Clutter, clutter everywhere


Psychology of clutter
The benefits of decluttering
Personality types
The first steps

02 Household clutter


Entryway
Living room
Kitchen
Dining spaces
Laundry room
Kids' spaces
Master bedroom
Closets
Bathroom
Home office
Storage spaces
Linen closet
Craft/hobby space
Packing for vacation

03 Digital clutter


Electronic files
Digital photographs
Digital decluttering

04 Calendar clutter

Prioritizing
Saying "no"
Embrace routines
Family meetings
The household calendar
The administration station
Overcoming procrastination

05 Maintenance


Staying motivated
Creating new habits
Tiny tasks
Involving the whole family
How to cope if you backslide
Making checklists

06 Checklists and planners


100 things to throw out
Household tasks
30 tiny tasks
Wardrobe organizer
Weekly meal planner
The week's chores
Reward board
Filing system
Packing lists

Useful addresses
Index and credits

Editorial Reviews

11/23/2015
Thomas, editor of From Hoarding to Hope and host of the A&E television series Hoarders, shares a decade's worth of home organization expertise in this handy guide. Following an introduction on the psychology of clutter, the book goes room by room, making it an excellent step-by-step guide for anyone wanting to declutter an entire home. But it is not only for decluttering physical space; Thomas's goal is nothing short of organizing entire lives, which, she writes, will help those who follow her advice be happier, healthier, and more productive. She shares tips for reducing digital clutter and keeping homes clean and organized. Readers will get a lot of use out of her checklists for maintaining attractive, tranquil, clutter-free spaces as well as packing for travel and seasonal home organizing. The focus of the book is on the busy, two-working-parent households, complete with chapters on children's rooms and engaging the whole household in both decluttering and maintenance. More attention could have been given to the challenges of organizing small spaces, but this book promises to be useful for readers hoping to purge any level of clutter. Photos of well-organized home interiors throughout the book offer inspiration and ideas for both neophyte and advanced organizers. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

This useful guide provides fun, creative and painless ways to get started using tips, techniques, quick fixes and trade secrets used by professional organizers... The book begins with her discussion of psychology of clutter and the various personality types... The second section is what I call the meat of the book. Here we learn how to get rid of clutter in the common areas where it tends to pile up the most. Think the bedroom, kitchen, closets, bathrooms and the basement... After you've completed your decluttering, now you have to maintain. The author has dedicated an entire section to maintenance. Learn how to stay motivated and easy ways you can involve the whole family into keeping your home clean and organized... If decluttering your home is on your to-do list, consider picking up this book to help keep you focused and get the job done right!

Simply Stacie Blog - Stacie

Geralin has been a professional organizer since 2002. It's abundantly apparent in this book that she knows her stuff. The book is full of bite-sized information and suggestions for every area in the house. It's richly illustrated, making it really appealing to read and very accessible. The information in the book is a wonderful combination of practical and aspirational. She covers things that are in every home (like junk drawers) to things that I probably could only aspire to (a converted armoire-style storage cabinet with custom-made drawers to act as a pantry)... In the book, Geralin offers specific suggestions on decluttering, as well as fantastic organizing and storage tips. So if you're not dealing with a whole lot of clutter but just want to fine-tune your organizing, you'll love this. If you are dealing with clutter, it'll be a godsend. I love the chapter on maintenance, which covers creating habits and also offers advice on coping with backsliding. And the final chapter—full of checklists of chores, tasks, and even wardrobe and meal planners—is really useful.

Peace of Mind Organizing Blog - Janine Adams

I almost never do book reviews — let me be honest, with my crazy, distracted personality. I just really don't enjoy reading books. But, this one — this one is totally different. If I had to write a book, this would be how I'd want it to be. I have no interest in writing a book, but this would be the way I'd want it. If you need some motivation, some simple guidelines, pictures (I like lots of pictures), and examples of how to get things decluttered and organized - you are going to love this book.

Organizing Made Fun Blog - Becky

The essential companion for anyone looking to organize their life and rid themselves of clutter. Filled with trade secrets, resources, tips, tools, tactics, techniques and organization revelations, Decluttering Your Home arms readers with the tools to create a living space that looks attractive and feels both inviting and comfortable. This practical book guides the reader start-to-finish through the process of how to get rid of clutter in the places where people tend to hoard it most: the bedroom, kitchen, closets, bathroom and every hoarder's favorite, the basement. Geralin Thomas brings her wealth of professional experience—both as a Certified Professional Organizer specializing in Chronic Disorganization and Hoarding, and from her time working on A and E TV's Emmy nominated show Hoarders—and gives readers the motivation they need to get their lives sorted.

Getting Organized Magazine