Pare down and strip away

• Use your space as a guide. If you devote a space to a certain thing or type of thing, then get rid of the things that don't fit into that space. If you already have two bureaus filled with clothes and you are not the type of person the public expects to see in a different outfit each day of the year, then stop buying clothes! Or make a deal with yourself to get rid of something whenever you buy something new.

• Keep it simple. You can get extra space by using clear plastic boxes on your closet shelves for items you use every once in a while. It's very satisfying to be able to lay your hands on the exact thing you need when you need it, but looking after all that stuff can be more stressful than simply making do without.

• Become a detective of your own life. Watch yourself when you come in the house. Where do you put the keys, the mail, your bag, the newspaper? Does it all go in one place? What about your jacket? Then where do you go? Make things easy for yourself. If you have a front hall, put a table there big enough to accommodate the mail and your bag. If you don't, set up an incoming-outgoing station as close to the door as possible where those things can be parked. You get the idea.

• Assign “homes.” This is the way to avoid CHS-itis. CHS stands for convenient horizontal surfaces, which get filled quickly and easily when there is no assigned place to put something.

• Pare down and strip away. Michelangelo believed that his sculptures were the result of liberating the figures that had been imprisoned in the stone. Think of your home as that chunk of marble. Develop a vision of how you want your home to look. The stronger your vision, the easier it will be to chip away those things that don't belong.