Before your clutter was clutter, it was a purchase you made. While getting your home organized can happen in a few sessions, keeping it organized requires that you change your habits around shopping.

So here’s the first commandment: Thou Shall Not Stray From The Shopping List.

Entering a store is submitting yourself to hundreds of manipulative marketing tactics. Tons of money and time has gone into designing the ideal environment most likely to separate you from your money, and no detail has been left to chance.

Retail stores manipulate the layout of aisles and displays to maximize your exposure to products. They use color theory to influence emotional states, HVAC systems to diffuse scents meant to trigger pleasant memories, music to energize you or soothe you. They manipulate pricing, discounts, deals, and product grouping to nudge you into buying more things. These influences are not totally within our conscious awareness, so we’re all vulnerable to needless impulse buys. (Yes, I'm aware I sound like a tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist, but this is for real, y'all.)

The best way to counter these tactics is simple. Make a shopping list at home, free from the insidious influences of the retail environment. Enter the store with the list in hand, and stick.to.the.list. No excuses. No matter what.

If you see something in the store that solves a problem, or that you genuinely forgot to add to the list at home, DO NOT TOUCH IT. Instead, add it to your existing list first. Then continue with your intended shopping. If you look at that item on the bottom of your list and think “meh, I actually don’t need that…” then check out and get the heck out. If you see that item on the list and think “phew, good thing I saw that item, because I really need it…” then you can go back and get it.

Adding time and effort to the impulse is the best way to ensure you didn’t just get suckered into purchasing the item.

Remember:

Impulse + immediacy + convenience = impulse purchase = likely regret = future clutter

Impulse + waiting +inconvenience = objective reasoning = smarter shopping = tidy home