Today I want to talk about getting rid of clutter: the why and the ever-so practical how.
Why should I get rid of clutter. Psychology Today poses 4 reasons to get rid of clutter.
1. Your Home feels like your enemy.
Your home is supposed to feel like a refuge. It should be a place where you can relax and unwind. Clutter absolutely destroys that feeling in your home. I know from personal experience that a cluttered house is stressful. Home was yet another load on the to do list, rather than a place to go to escape the chaos of the world. Having a clutter-free or at least a low-clutter home will contribute to your peace of mind.
2. It can kill your diet.
If nothing else gets you, this one should. I know so many people set a New Years Resolution to date healthy and then in a moment of weakness at the grocery store, grab that bag of half price candy from the holidays. I am not innocent of this by any means. But a study at Cornell
University showed that people are more likely to reach for the junk food when they are in a chaotic environment where they don’t feel in control.
3. It can make you less productive.
This piece of warning was really toward the workplace, but the same can apply to the home or even the home office. Clutter leads to stress. Stress creates cortisol in the brain, which works against your productivity. Having a low-clutter or clutter-free environment contributes to your mental health, which in turn contributes to your productivity.
4. It’s distracting.
Have you ever been to a restaurant with TVs every ten feet? How easy is it to focus on your family or your date? It’s not. That is what clutter does to your brain. It is completely distracting, and if you’re anything like me, it isn’t just the presence of the stuff that bothers me but now the stress I feel knowing I need to get rid of stuff but don’t know what to get rid of. Low-clutter and clutter free environments are just more conducive to productive relationships.
So you have the why, and that’s all fine and dandy, but how on earth do you actually do it. And because I try in this blog to give you practical tips as well as useful information, here are 4 things you can do to get rid of clutter.
1. Start in storage spaces.
Closets and attics and garages are the WORST for collecting clutter. Growing up, we had a running joke that we had to have a three car garage just to get to park a car in it. My mom saved absolutely EVERYTHING! I promise, you don’t need that 18th peanut butter jar as much as you think you do. Another thing she saved all of was cardboard boxes... “just in case we moved.” Again, moving boxes will be available if you need them. In the meantime, save your sanity by getting rid of the literal crap in your storage spaces. Now some of the stuff in those areas may not be junk. It could be old photos or baby clothes just in case or old childhood stuff. That stuff is much harder to part with. Photos can be digitized. Save a few choice outfits from the baby clothes and get rid of the rest. Salvage one box of childhood memories and try to part with the rest. Once you have decluttered these areas, you can transition stuff from the actual house to these areas for storage.
2. Get rid of excesses.
My mother was a hoarder. We had a huge closet of about 80 sheet sets, of which we used maybe 6, because we were a large family. We had, at one time, four different vacuum cleaners. Why? I don’t know. We only used one of them. Don’t become that person. Each bed needs two sheet sets, so that when one is being washed the other one can be used, or perhaps a cotton and a flannel set. Each bed needs a blanket and a cover. That’s it. If you fall out of love with one, buy a new one and sell the old one. You don’t need 5000 food storage containers or 50 knickknacks from every place you’ve ever been. Or 6 sets of dishes. So quit holding on to them. Claim your space and your mental health back.
3. Have a sell pile with a time stamp on it.
I believe in getting money back out of something if you can. We pretty much have a donation and a sale box going at all times. The sale box has a one month time limit on it. After that the items go in the donation box. This way the sale box doesn’t sit there incessantly, and we don’t end up incorporating those things back into the house in frustration.
4. Get organized.
Sometimes, things look cluttered with too much stuff, but it really just needs to be organized. You’d be amazed at the space you can create in a closet with a simple shelving unit. Another huge thing for me is that I can’t see the things, or my brain will get stressed out. Putting stuff in pretty baskets or storage cubes has at times saved my sanity. It’s still there. I just don’t see it.
Well that is my why and how of decluttering.
Until next week,
Mrs. Ashley Seguin
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