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Studies show that straightening out the physical spaces in your life can also bring mental clarity and who couldn’t use more mental clarity? Also, decluttering is cheaper than therapy.

With this in mind I took a look around me and decided it was time to declutter. After all, I live in a house, not a storage unit.

I started in my office where I was one stack of stuff away from an epic episode of “Hoarders.”

The first thing I did was to sort through the stacks and piles gleefully throwing most of the papers and old mail away and filing the rest. It really didn’t take long, just about 10 minutes.

The second thing I did was to “face” all the books on my shelves. This is a trick used in retail stores to make shelves look neat and it’s as simple as turning each volume in the same direction on the shelf. While I was doing this, I discovered I had two copies of a book called “Declutter Your Life: Getting Rid of Duplicates.” Oh the irony.

I also did some computer decluttering, deleting old files and emails and while I was doing that a little window popped up with a link to an article called “58 Home Organization Projects That Take 10 Minutes of Less.” How fortuitous, I thought but, also a little creepy. How did my computer know I was on a declutter, get organized mission?

One of the 10-minutes-or-less projects was to label the cables behind your desk or entertainment center. What a good idea, I thought since a couple weeks ago I spent no small amount of time on my hands and knees under my desk trying to figure out which cord, which cable went to which piece of equipment.

Unfortunately, the first instruction for this project was “grab the label maker.” I don’t own a label maker and my disappointment was real. It felt like getting all excited when a food blogger says “are you ready for a fast, easy and delicious weeknight meal?” And you think, “yes, yes, I am!” Then you keep reading and getting more excited about the possibility because the next sentence reads: “you probably already have most of the ingredients you need in your kitchen.” “Yippee!” you think, now really looking forward to getting to the recipe only to read on to the first instruction which tells you to “start by milking your goat …”

So with no label maker (and no goat) I scrolled through some of the other 58 declutter, get organized projects. One of them suggested walking around your home and gathering up stray light bulbs, batteries, stamps and spare change. Really? OK but my foray proved less than fruitful. I really don’t have errant bulbs, batteries or stamps laying about and “spare change” implies “extra money,” which I don’t have either.

Next on the list was organize your freezer by, you guessed it, labeling everything. Sigh.

Then it was on to the sock drawer. The instructions were simple: match up and organize your socks. That took about seven minutes at the end I realized I could start a support group for Socks Without Partners.

One of the projects was to make space in a closet or cupboard to make room for things sitting out on table tops (or on the floor). Well this was all swell and good until I realized there was a much bigger, would take longer than 10 minutes project that needed to precede this project which was to actually clean out the cupboard or closet so there would be room for more things. I wasn’t up for that plus … if I wasn’t already using the things sitting in stacks and piles on tables and the floor collecting dust, I probably wasn’t going to use it more by shoving it in a closet.

I did however take on the tasks of throwing away old magazines and catalogs; sorting through the Tupperware and throwing out lids with no containers and vice versa; throwing out old make-up and nail polish; sorting through towels and bedding and throwing out anything with holes or stains; and sorting through my closet and putting anything I haven’t worn in two years into a donation bag.

I was feeling pretty darn accomplished so decided to skip the whole “if you hold it and it doesn’t bring you joy throw it out” method of decluttering because I’ve learned that throwing out cleaning rags, sponges, dish soap, laundry soap and fabric softening, bleach and scrubbing powder, mops, brooms and vacuum cleaners is just too costly.

I did, however, remember a declutter, get organized tip someone told me years ago which was to finish things. Just finish them.

This seemed, after several hours of diligent decluttering, to be a good idea so I went into the kitchen where I found part of a bag of dark chocolate Kisses, a half bottle of rum, a nearly empty bottle of tequila and a partially eaten bag of potato chips.

I finished everything so that when my beloved husband came home not only was the house (mostly) decluttered but, the chicken was in the Crockpot and so was I.

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