February Decluttering

Our home is pretty tidy, considering we have two adults with full-time-plus jobs, a kid and two dogs living here. Much of that is a result of our daily rituals: pick up after breakfast, then again after dinner. When we have a party or people over, we pick up immediately after everyone goes home, with almost no exceptions. Much of that is due to the fact that two fairly tidy people married each other, and we both think, work and relax better in organized and tidy spaces.

BUT. We each have our own, shall we say, problem areas. Ok, mostly I do. Behind my closet doors are chaos. Our laundry room is where we both dump all sorts of big things that we can’t put away in the moment and then they sit there there for weeks or months until you can’t even really walk in there. Or until February. Because it is the absolute best month to declutter. It’s too cold to do much else, the holidays are mostly past and everyone is hibernating.

We just did this last weekend, and I think the best thing about decluttering is that you feel so at ease and relaxed in your space afterwards. Every time I’ve walked into the laundry room this week, I’ve appreciated the work we put in last weekend. Decluttering: a little gift to your future self.

So, this weekend, some decluttering inspiration both visual and literary, and some ideas for how to avoid the clutter build-up going forward. Let’s start with what I think is the best decluttering read of all time: a story published in 2021 in The New Yorker.