I tried the one-touch rule to organise my home. Here's what happened

Kya deLongchamps wants to know if the discipline will transform her household into the well-ordered environment she craves

Start small and instil some calm in what you’re doing. The one-touch rule is a good way to get through editing down domestic ballast in the course of a declutter. File picture

Even where minimalism is verging on neurosis, clutter is often not the problem. It’s tidiness, that plain, old-fashioned habit of putting things back where they belong. After an avalanche of luggage knocked my glasses smartly off my face and almost crushed my oldest JRT (she can’t corner as she used to), I had to face the fact that me and mine were covert domestic slobs. We were shovelling the couldn’t-be-bothered behind cupboard doors, postponing the pain of dealing with that dratted sheaf of envelopes — the ripped throw, that pile of books for St Vincent de Paul. 

The place is Spartan already. I appear to have been robbed. There was nothing on show not performing a practical role and/or that didn’t have a strong emotional pull and yet, I was failing in maintaining the well-ordered environment I wanted. At the end of most days, detritus and undone tiny jobs were littered around my rooms and more disturbingly, snowballing in my head.