Confessions of a Clean Sweep Groupie

By Dawn Miller

I hate to admit it – but I have become a Clean Sweep groupie. That’s right – I eagerly look forward to watching the show on Discovery’s TLC channel that helps a family each week clean out its clutter, deal with “stuff issues,” and reorganize its home into a comforting oasis.

Sometime last year this utterly formulaic show lassoed my interest – wooing me with its completely predictable ending – that the family would end up organized, have a gorgeous functional space, and be purged forever of their hideous trinkets and ugly furniture.

I soon found myself envisioning my home blissfully organized. But my quest for orderliness was not without its challenges.

My stepchildren shed backpacks, dishes and jackets in the living room, under the sofa, or wherever they pause. My husband – the sweet dear – absentmindedly removes change from his pockets and scatters it all over the house on a daily basis. Our business expansion last year left my husband and I spending more time in our home office – meaning more meals at home and more time in the house to mess it up.

And then there was myself – a woman who successfully executes organization in her career but feels weighed down by attachments to old stuff and the new responsibilities of stepmom-hood.

Like most people we accumulated stuff before and after our marriage – towels, kitchen appliances, office supplies in bulk and gardening equipment. It became clear that if we didn’t get a handle on the clutter we would drown.

And I don’t have an army of people, two carpenters, an interior designer and a professional organizer at my disposal to help us whip the house into shape in two days like on Clean Sweep. I just have myself – and my husband – who joined my quest for utopian organization. And we don’t have a mountain of free time. So strategy was of necessity.

Here’s a few organizational steps we took toward taming our chaos:

(1) Zone the clutter. We began with zoning clutter – deciding that there were areas of the house where clutter was ok. I drew the line at the door to the kids’ rooms a long time ago – pronouncing that unless a smell came out I wouldn’t go in. My husband got better about reminding the kids to haul their backpacks, shoes and schoolbooks to their rooms, instead of leaving them scattered all over our living room, kitchen and entryway. I can live with some mess if it’s behind a closed door.

And we soon found that the zone concept worked well for us and our natural habits. I bought baskets for shelves in the living room to collect DVDs, those ever-scattering coins, and odd magazines. The baskets give us an easy way to round up clutter without feeling like we had to put everything away the minute we got home and we weed them out periodically. A coffee can on my husband’s dresser gives him another place to plop his perturbing pocket change.

(2) If you have years of accumulated stuff and only a little free time, purge in phases over time. Expecting that we could whip our house into organizational bliss in one weekend after years of neglect was a pipe dream. We accepted that it would take time. As someone who prides herself on accomplishing tasks quickly and efficiently – that was tough for me to accept.

Tackling one project at a time broke our de-cluttering project into smaller steps and made it easier to schedule into our hectic lives. During the week I limit myself to only spending 15 minutes on any organizational project. I weeded out the bottom of the hall closet before work, tackled the area under my bathroom sink (there was makeup down there I hadn’t used since our wedding) and saved my closet for a Sunday afternoon.

(3) Set up a purge zone and donate regularly to charity. For me, having a purge zone means setting out a box or two that I can fill up with items to donate as I find them during my short 15-minute organizational bursts during the week. On Saturdays I donate them to a thrift store for the homeless – netting us a tax deduction, a sense of helping others and a feeling of cathartic clutter relief.

Inspired by my enthusiasm but with a home so crowded she could barely function, a friend of mine set up two tarps in her garage – with one space for items to keep and another for items to donate. It took her a few weeks to get thru everything as she could only work on her sorting project in the evenings, but having a purge zone helped her get rid of the clutter that plagued her for years.

(4) Find allies to help you sort problematic items. My college girlfriends used to be fabulous at helping me sort my clothes and we often swapped items we’d grown tired of. With my gaggle of girlfriends scattered all over the country and in various phases of family formation – having a closet purge party is not easy. So I phoned one of my old girlfriends to talk me thru a wardrobe weed-out and we had quite a laugh when I discovered a shirt we purchased together on a shopping trip more than a decade ago.

Living in a culture that overvalues possession ownership in excess and outward appearances – it can be difficult to untangle our personal selves from our stuff. A friend or professional organizer can play a valuable reflective role by asking you to vocalize why you need to keep something you never use. You can even swap organizing help with a friend to make it easier.

In my next column, I’ll discuss the nitty-gritty of selecting which items to keep and which ones to toss when de-cluttering your home – and a few tricks I discovered that helped me reform my packrat ways.