Day One | Mini Declutter in 5 minutes/day for one week

For one week we are running daily Tips to Declutter in 5 minutes. 


Day One Tip: Call and schedule a pick up for one week in advance.


If you've already got a favorite charity that will pick up your donation, call and schedule a pick up. Make a note of how they like to have the boxes marked  for Day 2. I found a new favorite with a Google search of "donation pick up boulder." The search gave me local and nationwide organizations but I like to do everything online, so  Pick Up Please was perfect for me; they let me schedule online, they sent my reminder and receipt by email, and I feel great about it helping Veterans. Think about whether you prefer phone or email and choose the charity that fits your style.

The magic of the human brain is that when you decide to donate some of what's cluttering up your house, you will start seeing candidates for donation everywhere: boxes of summer clothes that are out of style, a comforter for a king-sized bed you no longer own, that tetherball pole that has been propped up in the garage for three years.  The way that our brains handle the overwhelming amount of visual stimuli we encounter every minute is to blur everything except what we are focusing on.  We literally see what we expect to see. So by choosing to focus on finding clutter to donate, it will pop into view. There's a great book on the topic of how our brains see what we expect to see in Designing with the Mind in Mind.


That's why we are bringing you this series. 

To give you a little added incentive, if you post a picture of your donation on the Orderly Chic Facebook page by July 1, 2012, you'll receive a $10 voucher for any products on orderlychic.com.