Last week, we talked about “declutter clutter.”

This week, let’s talk about limbo items—things that are destined to leave your home—but until they do…

You don’t know where to put them.

So you keep them out on a table or chair somewhere, maybe even in a pile on the floor—hoping seeing them will remind you to deal with them.

But all it does is create more physical and mental clutter for you.

Limbo items

I had a client recently with a stack of children’s books on her kitchen table that drove her crazy:

• She would slide them out of the way for dinner.

• They would fall.

• She would move them to a nearby chair.

• She would then need the chair.

• She would move them again, etc.
  

Why weren’t these books on the bookshelf? you ask.

Because she was planning on giving them to a friend, but they hadn’t set a date to meet yet—so these books were living in limbo.

There are things that are on their way out of our homes

and until we get them out, we don’t know where to put them.

So they float around, moving from room to room, from surface to surface, for weeks (or months), until we finally get them out.

The solution is to create an “outbox” for these on-their-way-out items.

An “Outbox” sounds like cubicle, office talk, I know!

But an “Outbox” is simply a place you’ve decided those “on-their-way out” items will live until they leave your home:

• the dry cleaning that needs to be dropped off

• the Amazon return that has to go to the UPS store

• the container of used TV remote and computer mouse batteries that need to be taken to the Call2Recycle bin at The Home Depot

The solution

PLACE them near the FRONT door.

It’s a hint to the items that their time is near. 😉

And it’s a visual cue for YOU to remember to take [that thing] with you on your way out.

When I was a kid, my mom would simply put these types of things on the floor by the front door. It worked, but the visual clutter by the front door certainly didn’t help our house feel more calm.

So let’s take that brilliant concept from my mom and get super-classy with it.

Think about placing these items next to the front door, but in a beautiful decorative basket.

My husband and I don’t have the floor space by the door for a basket, so we use a dedicated shelf in the cabinets behind the front door for these items.

My mother-in-law uses a small bureau she keeps by her front door.

What will YOU use?

What kind of “Outbox” can you create to make your life a little bit easier and your home a little less cluttered?

And when you’re ready to get advanced…

Take a look at those things in your “Outbox” and decide WHEN you’re going to take care of each thing:

• Call that friend and set a time for you to drop off those books off for her kids.

• Check the hours of the UPS store and decide what day and time you will drop off your Amazon return.

• Grab the dry cleaning the very next time you leave the house—it’s not that far out of your way, is it?

Mark your calendar and then do each thing when you decided you would do it.

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