What is the ski slope method of decluttering? I tried it out - and for once, I didn’t get distracted

Let’s be honest; most people hate decluttering their homes. It’s time-consuming and overwhelming, and it requires a lot of decisions. The biggest one of all is which decluttering method you should use. The minimalist method? The 20/20 method? Or what about the ski slope method?

Yep, with so many decluttering methods out there, it can be hard to know which one suits you, your home, and, ultimately, your clutter. After all, choosing the wrong method is a surefire way to make decluttering mistakes. But sometimes, taking a chance on something new can be the difference between a home that you love and a house that you tolerate.

As someone who has only been skiing (or at least tried to ski) once in my life, I figured that I’d fail miserably when I tried the ski slope decluttering method out for myself. But it turns out that anyone can do it, and it’s incredibly effective.

What is the ski slope decluttering method?

The ski slope decluttering method is all about conquering your clutter without feeling overwhelmed or pressured. This decluttering method was created by Anita Yokota, a marriage and family therapist turned interior designer who has used her experience of wellness and psychology to merge her two passions.

In essence, Anita believes that everyone should incorporate self-care and connection into their homes. And this is something she has written about extensively in her book Home Therapy, alongside her ski slope decluttering method.

Explaining this method on Instagram, Yokota writes, ‘The idea is to imagine your messy room like a ski slope. If you try to go straight down, the steep angle feels scary and overwhelming. But if you traverse the slope - skiing from one side to the other - you lessen the angle and make it down the mountain without even noticing. Instead of looking at the room from front to back, look at it from corner to corner.’

Ultimately, you want to break down your decluttering efforts by imagining each room as separate parts - rather than one giant room - that you must conquer. You’ll start at the top of the slope (say, one corner of your room) before zooming off in one direction (another corner) and then heading off to the other side of the mountain (another corner of your room).

This allows you to focus on mindful decluttering and avoid crashing into a pile of clutter at the bottom of the slope. And as someone who struggles to declutter, I decided to give it a go.

Trying out the ski slope decluttering method

I recently wrote about the four-box decluttering method and how it allowed me to declutter without feeling overwhelmed. The ski slope decluttering method followed the same style. After all, it also has both mindfulness and practicality at its core.

To test it out for myself, though, I decided to focus on one room in my home: my dressing room.

My dressing room is essentially a half-bedroom that comes directly off our main bedroom, and we’ve filled it with a large clothing rail and two large chests of drawers. And while you’d think that it would be relatively easy to declutter, it’s instead very easy to become cluttered.

With the ski slop decluttering method in the back of my mind, I decided to tackle the top of my chest of drawers first. Over the past few years, it has also become a makeup stand and dumping ground for clothes that aren’t quite dirty enough to go in the wash (AKA, it’s my very own chair of doom).

Normally, when I do this, I get thoroughly distracted and overwhelmed as my makeup technically lives on a cluttered plant stand by the mirror, and my clothes live on the rail. So, when I try to declutter the top of my chest of drawers, I never actually complete a task before getting distracted by different jobs.

Taking the ski slope decluttering method in my stride, though, I decided to focus only on the top of my chest of drawers first. I threw my dirty-but-not-dirty clothes on the floor and popped my makeup back on its stand - I’d get to them later.

By the time I was finished, old receipts had been thrown in a bin (I always carry a bin bag with me during my decluttering sessions), my jewellery had been placed back in its box, spare change had been popped in my pocket to go back into my purse, and I even gave it a once-over with a cleaning wipe. Then, I zoomed over to the next section on the other side of the room: my clothes rail.

As I hang 90% of my clothes on the rail, my clothes don't get too messy. But as I had some clothes on the floor from decluttering the top of my chest of drawers, I popped them on hangers and just made sure that all of the hangers were facing the same way for uniformity.

Nearby, I also had a basket of clean washing that needed to be put away. And while I’m not sure whether Anita would class this as a separate section of the mountain or not, I figured that hanging everything up was all part and parcel of the same job - so I put them away too.

Then, I skied over to my next section: inside my chest of drawers. What I’ve learned from the 10-minute declutter method is that drawer organisers are key. So, I just made sure that all of my remaining clothes were folded correctly and in the right organisers.

To end my decluttering session, I finished by tackling the makeup on my plant stand - something I tend to avoid (because how the heck do you neatly organise makeup and hair accessories?). I popped the items that had previously been on the top of my chest of drawers back in my makeup bag and also made sure to go through it and throw away any empties or anything that just looked past its prime.

All in all, the whole process took me around 10-15 minutes, and I will admit that it was fairly seamless. I didn’t get distracted and made sure to stick to one task at a time. However, I do have to question whether the ski slope decluttering method will work for everyone - or for every room.

While I found it to be extremely effective at decluttering my dressing room (which was relatively less cluttered than other areas of my home), I have a feeling that it just wouldn’t be enough for me to tackle other areas of my house.

In fact, I’m fairly confident that it wouldn’t be enough for my home office, which also doubles up as a guest room, second wardrobe for winter clothes, and general dumping ground. After all, moving from one side to the other will take hours - and I’ll no doubt get both bored and overwhelmed by the task.

For that job, I think I’ll have to pull out the big guns. What that is, though, I’m not quite sure yet…

So, will you be giving the ski slope decluttering method a go?