Amy Revell

And so sometimes a step that you can take in decluttering is to get rid of the thing that holds the stuff.

So it might be getting rid of a toy box or getting rid of a bookshelf or getting rid of a bedside table or getting rid of an extra set of drawers that you have in the laundry.

When you get rid of them, you're like, well, now I don't have the space.

Now I have to make a decision about the stuff that was in it.

Because when you have those containers and drawers and shelves and all of that stuff, you will naturally fill it.

It's just one of these laws of South Parkinson's law.

If you have the space available, you're most likely going to fill it.

But this is exciting because Parkinson's law also applies if you downsize.

If you give it less bookshelves, less toy boxes, less drawers that you're filling, a smaller house, you also naturally expand and contract to fit it.

So if you do decide to downsize, it makes sense then that you would look at it and go, well, I have to get rid of some stuff because you understand this law that stuff will fill the amount of space that you give it.

When you give it less space,

I mean, you have to declutter, right?

Because there's nowhere else to put it.

So Parkinson's law is a good one.

It's a principle I often talk to clients about because it has real life application and it's easy to see.

It's easy to kind of picture and go, yeah, you're right.

Whenever I have an empty drawer, I think, what can I put in here?

An empty cupboard is like, oh, what can I store in here?

And that principle applies right across any kind of your organizational stuff and just creates clutter if you've got too much space.

Next one is over time you don't see your stuff and we talk about this being like you become visually unable to see what's in front of you so it's kind of like this invisible clutter because you no longer can notice all the things and sometimes it's not until someone important comes to your house maybe it's your mother-in-law and you're just like oh I'm really conscious or a new friend or your kids bring someone over from school and you look at your house with fresh eyes.