It’s difficult to truly feel content and love your home when things are chaotic. Most of us—myself included and many people I asked on Facebook—long for more order and less clutter. To enjoy autumn and to prepare for the busy holiday season, it helps to address the underlying issue I call visual chaos.
When a room is full of stuff—piles of paper, laundry, in-progress projects, or simply too many accessories—your eyes never find a peaceful place to rest. That constant visual noise keeps you from noticing the beauty in your home and can drain your energy and creativity.
Visual chaos can show up as random clutter or as a lack of cohesiveness in your decor.
Today we’ll focus on the clutter. Later, we’ll explore simple ways to create visual calm in your decor without needing a muted color palette.
Start with one room. Notice I didn’t say the whole house—just one room. If clutter is a problem, you need a place to begin that you can manage. Pick one room and commit to keeping it tidy. That small success becomes a habit that naturally spreads to other spaces. In my home, we prioritize keeping rooms like the family room, kitchen, living room, dining room, and powder room as clutter-free as possible. I’d rather enjoy a few calm, clutter-free spaces than spread the mess throughout the whole house and have no peace anywhere.
My house isn’t perfect—here’s what I often find in an upstairs bedroom. A pile of things we brought home from church, a stray sock, a paint can—items that end up in a heap because we don’t know where to put them. Most homes have these random collections of stuff. That’s normal.
Your home will still get messy—people live there, and that’s a good thing. We have kids and hold music rehearsals at our house, so rooms get moved around and used. The difference is we don’t allow clutter to remain in those rooms. Because of that, restoring order is fast and painless. Here’s a simple technique that helps me reclaim a room quickly. It isn’t revolutionary, and it’s a little bold, but it works.
The Grab & Box Technique
1. Choose one room that’s become cluttered.
2. Gather several bags or boxes and quickly move through the room, filling them with anything that doesn’t belong or that you don’t want to decide about right now. Don’t overthink it—if it’s random or out of place, put it in a bag.
3. You can place all items in a single bag for the fastest tidy-up, or label bags “GIVE AWAY,” “TRASH,” and “DEAL WITH LATER” if you prefer a bit of sorting as you go. Set aside bills or urgent items to handle immediately.
4. Avoid getting bogged down in micro-organizing during this step. Make quick decisions so you can finish the room and see the result.
5. Schedule a specific time—put it on your calendar—to go through the bags one at a time. Handle donations, trash, and items to be resolved. If you’re ready to let things go, discard the contents without guilt.
This method delivers fast, visible results. I’m motivated by instant gratification, so seeing a tidy room helps me stay committed. Just be sure to deal with the bags promptly instead of letting them accumulate.
Tackle this task today and autumn nesting will be that much more enjoyable!
Which rooms in your house need decluttering?
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