The Five-Step No-Mess Method for Decluttering & Organising

The best definition of clutter I’ve found is:

“Clutter is anything that consistently gets out of control in your home.”
- Dana K White.

In my experience, this usually happens when we have more stuff than we can handle. 

What gets out of control for you might look very different to what used to get out of control at my place (toys were a big one!).

Since you’re the expert on all the chaos hotspots in your own home, you’re the best person to decide what counts as clutter for you.

My job isn’t to tell you what to keep and what to remove. My job is to help you identify what’s currently out of control in your home, support you to work through it so that your belongings fit accessibly in the available space, and help you build the skills and routines to finally keep things under control day-to-day with minimal effort.

Please reach out if you’re stuck!

Not pulling everything out is the key to preventing a bigger mess!

In my experience, pulling everything out and dumping it on the ground is a one-way ticket to a long-term pile of junk on your floor.

If you get interrupted or lose steam while there’s still stuff all over the place, you’ll eventually have to come back and deal with it later.

Let’s avoid that trap altogether!

Just start with the first piece of rubbish you can see, and leave all the other stuff where it is as you work.

That way, if you have to stop earlier than expected, you won’t have a big disaster waiting for you to deal with ‘later’ (or if you’re me: much, much later…)

Going item by item, one at a time, means:

• We don’t make piles of stuff all over the floor (because it’s just one thing at a time)

• You deal with every single thing through to completion, so there are no loose ends to tie up ‘later’ (AKA never). This means we can stop at any time!

This is the part in the process where I often suggest that people just try doing it and trusting the process, even if they think it seems inefficient.

I promise that as you work through it, you’ll experience why this makes sense (and see for yourself how it doesn’t create a bigger mess!)

Take it there now is one of the most powerful parts of the No-Mess Process!

It means that when we find an item that belongs somewhere else, or needs to go to the rubbish bin or donation box, we take it to its home right away.

For example, if you find something that’s Easy Stuff (it already has an established spot somewhere else in your house), you would take it there right now and put it fully away immediately.

It can seem counter-intuitive, but taking it there now means that you deal with each item to completion.

This means you can stop at any time and will never have piles of stuff to sort through when you’re finished, because everything you’ve touched is already all the way done.

Solve this problem by removing obvious rubbish and donations from the other space until your item fits.

Return to where you were working, and bring the extra rubbish/donations with you.

Put the new items straight into your black rubbish bag/recycling bin or donation box, then go back to the spot you were working in before and continue where you left off.

Ta da!

I encourage every single one of my clients to skip anything that feels too hard!

Don’t pull it out or put it in a pile to the side. Just totally skip it, leave it where it is, and move on to a less tricky item.

Leaving ‘hard’ stuff where it already is means you can keep making progress without getting stuck on something that feels too overwhelming.

Even if that item doesn’t get dealt with today, your space will still be better off than when you started.

Remember, the goal is LESS + BETTER, not PERFECT!

I hear you. Sometimes the thought that we have rubbish in amongst our daily items can feel like someone is saying: “Your house is dirty,” or “Why haven’t you cleaned up properly?”

I always encourage people to just have a quick look for any really obvious rubbish that might be there, just in case.

If there’s none, we can move straight on to the next step!

(But in my experience, there’s always rubbish. ALWAYS. Especially in my own house. Sigh.)

This is totally normal.

As you start clearing the easily visible stuff, you will almost certainly uncover more Rubbish, Easy Stuff and Donations that have been lurking underneath other things.

We simply deal with each item as we encounter it, even if it’s from a ‘previous’ step.

That's completely normal. Getting decluttering help can bring up big feelings: grief, guilt, overwhelm, relief. 

That’s why I love the No-Mess Method, because it’s designed to reduce emotional overwhelm.

Instead of using feelings to make decisions (like ‘Does this spark joy'?), which can be exhausting, we use fact-based questions that only have one answer rather than multiple-choice.

If you find you need extra support for your mental health as you navigate letting go, please reach out to your doctor or local mental health services for assistance.