Look at your room as if you've never seen it before, not as the person who had arranged it, but as the person encountering it for the first time.

This is genuinely difficult because familiarity is hard to overcome in this exercise, but here is a technique that works.

Photograph the room.

Not for Instagram. Not styled. Just a straightforward photograph from the doorway, the way a stranger would see it when they first walked in. It's kind of like fashion designers taking polaroids of potential runway models.

Then look at the photograph, not the room.

The photograph removes familiarity. It flattens the space into something you can read more objectively. What you'll often find is that the story the room is telling is not quite the story you thought.

Then ask these three questions:

   1. What is the first thing my eye goes to, and is that what I want the room to say first?

   2. What is the most personally expressive object in this room, and is it doing enough? Is it placed where it can be seen?

   3. What would I remove if I had to take one thing out. Why haven't I removed it already?

The third question is always the most revealing.

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