Clutter triggers me in the worst way — toys scattered across the living room rug, clothes piled on the bedroom floor, papers hogging precious table surfaces, the junk drawer you can barely close — all of it feels like a giant roadblock to relaxation for me. My husband does not have this relationship with clutter. He can block it out for the most part, file it in the "to attend to at some point" mental folder, and relax right around it.
For a while, the two of us wrestled with our differences, but when we became parents, our adorable toddler's clutter transformed a snowballing issue into a full-on avalanche that demanded a compromise. The resolve ended up being pretty straightforward: set up a system that simplifies the entire process and is easy enough to actually maintain. Is our home perfect? Of course not, but we feel good in it. After sifting through my fair share of podcasts and books on the subject and enduring our own trial and error, these six tips have made the biggest difference for us.
