Clutter Elimination

[dragon wench]

I think everybody has moments where they look at the assorted clutter in their homes and wish desperately they could just snap their fingers and have it miraculously vanish.

IMO, some things seem to cause more clutter than others. For us it seems to be paper... and loose change. My SO is continuously leaving piles of coins around, and it drives me crazy.

So, if you could utter something like "AbraCadabra" and have all the annoying bits and pieces disappear, what would they be?

[Mr_Snow]

Not so much dissappear rather add space

The house my partner & i are in now is smaller than before, so we've got a whole bedroom filled with box's of books/records etc practically to the ceiling.

We're saving up to buy a house so we'll be looking for one that has more space

(ow and having things properly sorted would help )

[slade]

Ive made a new rule for myself as to getting rid of clutter.....generally Ill go through everything...and anything I dont see myself using within the next 6 months.....I toss it out pretty much paper....I do keep alot of coins myself, but I use most of it for transportation so its not too bad of a clutter.....right now the current clutter are the boxes of PC equipment.

[Kipi]

For me, probably all those useless computer games and music cds...

I have dozens of games which do not work in my computer anymore (read: too old) and cds which I don't listen aymore...

[Magelord648]

My Brother

[Darzog]

Empty boxes.

My wife, for whatever reason, won't throw away a cardboard box bigger than what you get from Amazon for a single book/CD. She thinks that she'll end up using them for sending X-Mas presents or something. The only problem is that she never does. So half of our closet and almost half of our spare bedroom is filled with empty cardboard boxes.

[Ashen]

I don't know what to do with my CD/DVDs any more, be it games, music or movies. They are multiplying they are! Also paper, from Uni, I can never get rid of it cause it is always needed for something. And books, tons of books so ... I'd go for more space and an automatic organizer and I'd be happy

[mr_sir]

Paper and old letters/junk mail I just throw on the table every morning.

[Phreddie]

Snap my fingers and make it all go away? Why?! I cant concentrate enough to work on anything in my bedroom, be it beating a game or writing a paper, unless there is so much disorder in my room that my parents are yelling at me. If I see a clean and orderly room when I wake up, I mess it up, put papers here and there, in accordance with thier proper zones, spread cups, displace gum packaging, and rarely, if ever, lose a single thing, I can have 20 stacks of paper in my room and I will know exactly where that chemistry worksheet from two weeks ago is. My parents are trying to enact some Clutter Limitation rules upon me, but they, nor I, could ever eliminate the true clutter in my room, unless of course they wanted me to fail in school.

[shana]

I don't like to get rid of anything that may have some future use. So, I would love to be able to create a large room, with magically self-organizing shelves. It would also be great to make dust cease to exist!!

[Gwalchmai]

Odd you should mention this. Just this morning I had the urge to deal with the clutter. Last week, my wife had the carpets cleaned, and moved everything out of the kid’s rooms. She has slowly been putting things back, but ‘organizing’ as she goes. This morning, she left on a business trip and I was left with the dining table covered with the remaining stuff. I put away some of the larger things, and the rest (art projects, school papers, notes, small things, etc.) I put in a big paper sack and left next to her side of the bed! She’ll get around to it eventually, and in the mean time I can eat breakfast at the table again!

[Greg.]

So unlike your MW homes, DW...

My desk is a mass of paper, but I don't mind so much, cos I won't have to use any of it until mid/late August. I've reached equilibrium. Unfortunately, my parents disagree...

[Chimaera182]

Methinks DW was looking for magic words to get rid of the clutter, not what clutter thou possesseth.

I personally would never wish to devise some word or phrase to instantly remove my clutter; my clutter, as disorganized as it is, has a bizarrely-systematic organization to it which my brain subconsciously understands. When I need something, it's often on the floor and in a very conspicuous spot. More often than not, I find myself incapable of finding what I need after cleaning than with the clutter as it is; case in point, a couple weeks ago I began rearranging and cleaning my apartment, and several papers vanished which I rather needed: my upcoming semester schedule, a paper containing the phone number to the sleep lab where I still need to go for testing, the business card for my allergist who I need to see because my allergies have not abated under the prescription he gave me. I spent the better part of an hour tearing my place apart, thanks to cleaning. So for me, my magic phrase is: Clutter stay, clutter save.