8

Set Aside Time

The main reason clutter accumulates is because of a lack of time. You don't have time to put something away properly, so you drop it on the first available surface. Later, you still don't have time to put it away properly, and you also have something else in your hands, so that gets set down on top of the first thing. Cluttering is always the easiest option, and the more you employ it, the more time the eventual decluttering takes, and the problem only gets worse.

Ryan McVay/DigitalVision/Getty Images
Declaring yourself queen of Clutter Mountain is not a viable coping strategy.

7

Reverse Your Clothes Hangers

One specific trick for decluttering clothes is to put everything on hangers, then hang them backwards in your closet (so you have to reach underneath to unhook them). Then, when replacing any clothes that you've worn, you rehang them normally. After six months or a year or whatever you'll soon see from the hangers facing in the right direction which of your clothes you actually wear and can throw the rest into the sea.

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It must be the sea. Don't cheap out on this point.

6

Categorize

No matter what technique you use, you're going to have to efficiently decide what to do with each object you examine. The easiest way is to start moving things into one of three piles. Toss, Donate, or Keep. The Toss pile can go straight into a garbage bag.

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If you're throwing away actual garbage bags, you have to empty them first,
then put them into new garbage bags.

5

Have Some Booze

But professional help is expensive, so let's unpack what we're trying to do here. This is about making hard decisions, and those are always easier if you don't understand them. This means that wastedly plowing through your landfill of an apartment with a bottle of brown liquor and a garbage bag for a shirt is the smartest thing you could possibly do.

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I don't want to encourage irresponsible drinking, so please make sure to wear a high-viz garbage bag.

4

Call A Professional

You've got a few options if you do seek professional help. Junk-removal companies can do all the heavy lifting for you, though they won't be of much assistance with the emotional hand-holding if you're having trouble deciding what to get rid of. A full psychologist could help you do that, though those don't come cheap and usually want to stay far, far away from your stinkhole.

George Doyle/Stockbyte/Getty Images
"Can we find another name for that?"

3

Start A Fire

Fundamentally, the biggest problem here is your inability to set priorities. In your sick mind, the benefit of a clean apartment is somehow diminished when compared with the benefit of keeping seven knife blocks with no knives in them.

Dmytro Bershadskyy/Hemera/Getty Images
"Is that ... half a kayak? That's worth less than no kayak at all."
"NO I LOVE IT."

To help you get past this mental block, some declutter experts recommend a thought exercise in which you imagine what you would save if your house was on fire. Your children, sure, your elderly parents, yes, your spouse, of course. But assuming you don't have any of those, because they can't bear to live in your stinkhole, what do you choose to save then? The imaginary smoke helps you pierce the smoke in your own mind to help you see what's truly important to you.

2

Panic

Panicking isn't strictly speaking a tip, but if you get deep down into decluttering you'll likely experience a similar emotion. "Oh no, can I really live without this." "Oh, I really wish I hadn't thrown that out." "Oh God, the flames are getting higher."

Digital Vision./Photodisc/Getty Images
"Oh no, my vintage moonshine stills!"

Once you start to panic, you're no longer thinking clearly, so try to avoid making any further decisions. No more picking what to donate, or tidying up what you're saving, or deciding whether you should set other fires to fight the first fire you set. Just calm down, take some deep breaths, and go outside. If you feel dizzy, that might be smoke inhalation, so maybe go outside before those deep breaths.

1

Save The Professional

It will eventually come to pass that the professional you hired will be angry with you for trapping them in a fire and then pass out from said fire. This occurs during 75 percent of all high-level decluttering scenarios. And here at last we see something that is undeniably worth saving: a human life. So have another couple swigs of brown liquor and get right to that.

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This will also "save" you from a second-degree murder charge.

And with that one, most important thing saved, you will find that you are past your mental block. The rest of the decluttering will seem to take care of itself, and soon it will be obvious which must be thrown away.

Jeffrey Hamilton/DigitalVision/Getty Images
All of it.

Chris Bucholz is a Cracked columnist and has dozens of mental blocks still to get past. His first novel, Severance, is incredible and available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Apex Books. Join him on Facebook or Twitter.

Cleaning up and going green is great, but take care not to install energy-efficient windows, or they could laser blast your neighbor's home. Wait, on second thought, that sounds awesome. Find out how in The 6 Most Insane Ways Going Green Can Backfire, and then learn how, though you might be good at spiffing up your home, you'll never be as good at cleaning as nature is. See the fungus that eats radiation in 6 Ways Nature Cleans Up Our Messes Better Than We Do.

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