Accept the limitations of the space you have, and declutter enough that your stuff fits comfortably in that space.

Keep Boxes don’t work. They let me put off making a final decision. I can temporarily place a particularly difficult item inside, confident that the future version of me will know what to do with it. Future Me doesn’t deserve that much credit, and honestly, she doesn’t appreciate the pressure.

My attention span and my available time and my caring-whatsoever-about-this-mess are not guaranteed to exist in Later Land, so I can’t go there.

I can pick up a bad habit in three days flat and struggle for years to break it. A good habit, however, causes emotional angst and physical pain to create, but I can break it in less than twenty-four hours.

I didn’t decide anything. I didn’t figure out anything. I just accepted that limits were limits. And accepting limits was strangely freeing.

Decluttering is stuff you don’t need leaving your house. And that’s really all it is. If five things leave or five hundred things leave, you’ve succeeded.

Envisioning perfection inhibits more than it inspires.

Giving yourself permission to do something without the pressure of solving this never-ending problem once and for all is giving yourself permission to get started.

Remember your goals are “better” and “less,” so progress is everything.

Touch things. I’ve said it again and again. Look. Always, always look. Assuming what is in a box or at the back of a shelf does no good whatsoever. But assuming is the hardest thing for me to fight in my war against clutter. I see a mass of stuff and assume it’s full of emotions. I assume every last item in the pile, box, or closet will rip my heart right out of my chest. Every single item will represent a part of life I’m not ready to accept is over.