I understand the good intentions behind the “Only Handle It Once” (OHIO) rule. Clutter exists because someone couldn’t decide what to do with it, so the OHIO rule tells us to force a decision by vowing to only handle each item once. Unfortunately, this rule has one very big unintended consequence: paralysis! I’ve had many clients who come to a dead halt in their decluttering efforts when attempting to follow the OHIO rule. There are some items that just can’t be dealt with on a first pass.
Here are some alternatives to OHIO:
- Create a “not sure” box, but give it a name that relates to you. One of my clients called it her “ambivalent” box. Another called it her “think about it” box.
- Create a “good-bye” box for things you know you will be letting go of, but you want to have one last moment with before they leave your home. Schedule time to say good-bye.
- For papers that need action, move them one step along. If you can’t do the actual step, you can still do some preliminary work, like looking up a phone number, or scheduling time to do some research.
- For items that you are keeping but don’t yet have a home, create a “homeless shelter.” Once you’re further along in your decluttering, you’ll be able to assign permanent homes to store these items.
- Create the equivalent of a “junk drawer” in each room. Identify an appropriate space that has the sole purpose of being the place to put random objects. It might be a basket, a drawer, a shelf, or an entire closet, but at least you’ll have a place to put those random things.
Let’s replace the OHIO rule with the KIM rule: Keep it Moving! Don’t worry! Those items won’t be left to languish in their boxes forever. Once you’ve done the first pass, you’ll have the advantage of having looked at everything at least once and having a clearer vision of the big picture. It will be much easier to make decisions about what remains, and you’ll have whittled down the volume of stuff by quite a bit. Even if you’re still left with some items, they will be isolated, contained and manageable, instead of creating chaos throughout your home.