Decluttering your life in 13 weeks (10 minutes at a time): Weeks 3 & 4

Ok guys, it’s been a couple of weeks. Did you clean up your bathroom junk and talk to your folks? Time to get started with the next two steps. Remember to shoot for 10 minutes. If you want to do more, ok...but don’t do so much you turn yourself off decluttering forever! The whole idea behind this is to learn small habits that help you manage your life.

Week 3: Get another playlist going and tackle your closet.

First, take five minutes to go quickly through your clothes and set aside five things you haven’t worn in at least six months. They should be particular to the season—don’t give away your winter coat if it’s August! Just look for and find five things you really don’t need/use anymore and put them in a “donate” bag.

Take a couple of minutes to turn all your hangers around so the open part of the hook is facing you. When you wear something or you hang up your clothes, turn the hanger back right. (You don’t have to turn the hangers backwards anymore after this.) In a few months or so, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what you do and don’t wear regularly—because what you haven't worn will still be turned around backwards. Note: you should probably tell your mom you're doing this so she doesn't go in there and straighten up your hangers for you!

Next, spend a minute or two thinking about zones. What would be a good way to organize your stuff? Maybe you’ll have a sports-clothes zone in your closet, a shoe zone, a pants zone, etc. Just think about how you might group things together in a meaningful way so you can find them. You can start your first closet zone if you want. Just put like things together.

Last, go quickly through the clothes you’ve set aside. Is anything in there by mistake? Can you hand anything down to your little brother or sister? Tell your mom or dad you’ve got a bag of stuff to donate.

We'll revisit your closet in a month or so. For now, just try not to let it get any messier than it already is, and any time you run across something you don't use anymore, set it aside. You can keep a bag in the bottom of your closet for this.

Week 4: Go through your backpack.

Sit down somewhere where you have a bit of room and take everything out of it — every paper, book, candy wrapper, and pencil stub. Go quick and sort everything into piles: papers to give your folks, things to file away in your notebook, writing utensils. Throw out the trash. Empty the crumbs out of your bag over the trash can.

Ideally you should do this once a week. Getting in the habit of keeping your bag clean will mean it's easy to find anything in there. Guys, this goes for your gym/sports bag as well...but you really ought to be taking everything out of it every night when you get home from practice so you don't end up winning your household's Stinky Award. And ladies, going through your purse once a week and cleaning out the extra junk will help keep your bag slim, neat, and clean. (A lumpy purse that is bursting at the seams doesn't really compliment your outfit.)

Now that we’ve been doing this for a while, does it seem a little easier? It’s kind of amazing what you can do in 10 minutes, isn’t it?