What’s Your Clutter Personality Type?

Live clutter-free with clutter-busting articles, tips and resources. Learn the basics of cutting clutter with, discover your clutter personality, and bring order to every room of your organized home. Clutter is a sneaky beast, and not all people have clutter in the same way, or retain clutter based on the same criteria or mentality. Knowing your clutter personality type can help you beat clutter once and for all.

Clothes and closet clutter: Cleaning out your closet can be a huge player in clearing out clutter. The closet is notorious for being a place where things get stuffed and shoved. In closets, as in life, less is more. Specifically, the venerable 80-20 rule applies: we wear 20% of our clothing 80% of the time, while the remaining 80% represent the freeloaders of the wardrobe clan. Impulse purchases, orphaned blouses, and the one-size-too-small brigade choke rods, hooks and drawers, squeezing the life from the wearer-friendly 20%. Only current-season clothing that both fits and flatters should be assigned that valuable closet real estate.

Bathroom clutter: Home to grooming rituals and personal care chores--and heir to all sorts of oddments and obsessions--a master bathroom can hold surprises of all sorts. Use the ABC method:

A" storage areas are active, accessible, and meant for daily use. In a bathroom, the "A" areas get the toothbrush and the blow dryer, the shampoo bottle and the razor. "A" storage areas should be user-friendly. They should welcome the groping hand with no hidden hazards, even before the poor blind showerer has inserted her contact lenses or found her glasses. The vanity countertop, the top drawer, a chrome mesh bucket in the shower area are all "A" storage areas.

"B" storage areas hold items used weekly to monthly. The box of nifty pore-unclogging strips, the collection of scrunchies for exercise-class ponytails, nail care equipment and the battery-operated beard trimmer are all consigned to "B" areas. "B" areas aren't so easy to reach. You'll stretch or bend to reach the middle drawer, the under-sink spaces, the toilet-top storage cupboard.

"C" storage areas require excessive bending, stretching or standing on tip-toe. They're where you stash the gold-flecked makeup for fancy nights out, the foot-massage machine, and the upper-lip wax cooker. If you use an item less than once a month but more than twice a year, it's a lowly "C". Put it where the sun doesn't shine.

Kitchen clutter: Before you open a drawer, clear a counter or tackle a shelf, give yourself an attitude adjustment. To successfully declutter the kitchen, harden your heart before you begin. An efficient, convenient kitchen must be pared to the bone. During the declutter process, resolve to dump delusions, sentiment, and indecision along with the expired coupons and never-used cookbooks. Decluttering is an activity that takes time, thought and energy. You'll need every scrap of space and all your mental marbles for this activity, so begin with a clear deck and the tools you'll use to do the job. Clear the counters, empty the dishwasher and bring your kitchen to an ordinary state of clean before you begin. Fill a dishpan or sink with hot soapy water for quick clean-up and replacement of dusty items.

You’ll enjoy living in your Knoxville home much more once you get the clutter, wherever it may lie, under control!