My husband has a slogan, "Two things I hate, clutter and cleaning up clutter." I have a hard time with stuff on the dining room table. We do not eat there often anymore. So the table gets stuff dumped there coming into the house. I try to deal with it every morning (I am an early morning person) and put everything in its place. The key, I think, is to be sure that there is a defined place for all categories of stuff. I have small baggies for rubber bands, twistie ties, etc. When the bag gets full, it gets emptied into the trash. I set aside an hour every morning to deal with paper of all kinds-filing, paying bills, recording receipts of things we keep track of, sending cards, etc. It works pretty well because it takes less time to do daily than to let it stack up and do all at once. That is overpowering to me.