After losing a large amount of weight, Mrs. Howell had a mountain of clothes she loved but that no longer fit. As time passed, she ended up adding random things to the room, creating a large storage space that was difficult to navigate. After a short chat about what she wanted for the room, we settled on an approach that best fit her goal and her working style. We started with the clothes, sorting out what fit, what she wanted to sell, and what would get donated. We picked an amount of time she felt was reasonable to give each piece to sell, and then posted the item immediately. After each session, we loaded her car with the donation bags, and her homework was to drop them off before our next round. By splitting this job up into 2- or 3-hour sessions, and finishing up each visit completely before starting the next, we were able to get through the room quickly and avoid touching things multiple times. After the clothes, we simply started on one side of the room and worked our way around, making garbage, donation, and recycle piles, and dealing with them in the same “touch once” way we had the clothing.
Mrs. Howell’s old bedroom room
