Unfortunately, staying organized and clutter-free is a process that never ends. It’s something that you always have to stay on top of, always have to devote time to and constantly have to tweak. Just as maintaining a weight loss requires constant attention, so does being organized. But it becomes easier and easier as habits and systems are created to do just that.

You really have to keep a keen eye on everything that comes into your home or office to stay on top of it because it’s really easy for clutter to creep in. I’m a professional organizer, I love to organize and de-clutter and yet clutter still creeps into my home without any help from me.

I have a 25 year old daughter that moved back home a couple of years ago so she could begin attending college. Of course, all of her stuff came with her. Our home is not very big and so a large majority of her stuff ended up in her room and in our garage. I have organized, consolidated and de-cluttered our garage probably 3 times since she moved back home – finding a home for everything on the shelves.

Early this summer when we needed lawn chairs for an event, she mentioned that she had 3 lawn chairs but that 2 of them were broken. I about went through the roof and asked her if the broken chairs were in our cramped garage. When she answered that they were I asked her why we were keeping them. She didn’t have an answer and so they were quickly put in the trash.

This to me is a perfect example of how people end up with clutter. Things are broken, people know it, but yet they just hang on to it rather than get it out because it takes less effort. What 5 things do you know can go away today?