You're listening to Life Kit from NPR.

Hey everybody, it's Mariel.

I have a series of hooks by my front door for coats and stuff and there are five

hooks you know you think that would be enough but somehow all five of them are

dragging under the weight of my stuff.

Tote bags, backpacks, my leather jacket, my wool coat, my puffer jacket,

a hoodie, my denim jacket, that red leather purse that I never actually use. The clutter, it just piles up at the front door on the table, on the desk, on that chair in my bedroom that's never available for sitting. Star Hansen is a certified professional organizer.

And she says all of this stuff is trying to tell me something.

Clutter does speak to us.

Clutter is talking to us because we are talking to ourselves through our

clutter. And so what becomes clutter and where your clutter accumulates says a lot about what's going on with you.

Maybe you're a busy parent or you're up against too many deadlines at work or you're going through a health challenge.

Clutter looks like anything you can imagine.

Clutter looks like the way we talk to ourselves it looks like our calendar

it looks like our Netflix cue you know it's not just physical stuff it's anything that is

causing chaos in our lives but we can get this under control. On this episode of Life Kit,

How to declutter? Life Kit reporter Andy Taggle talks with Star about

organizing and it's not all pretty boxes, label makers, and throwing out

everything in your house. You know it's like we have this assumption that we should just

jump and get rid of things, right? Things to all the like makeover shows and all of that.

That's just it's so easy, just get rid of it.

But it's not, right?

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