Steps to Rid Your Life of Clutter
Nobody likes living in a cluttered home (that’s not hyperbole – literally no one likes it). Clutter is more than just a mess that we have to clean up. It’s an extra expense that weighs us down, and a responsibility that takes up more mental energy than you would think.
Having clutter throughout your home means that your living space is being corrupted in a way that can affect your mood and ability to think clearly. This isn’t the way that a home is supposed to be. We should be able to use our homes to relax and do personal work that fulfills us (every home should have a space to do this).
Clutter destroys this ideal. For this reason, here’s a list of things you can do to get rid of the clutter in your home and prevent it from building up to a boiling point…
Find opportunities to get rid of things
The reality of living in a place for a while is that the things you are own going to pile up. That’s simply the nature of life. We’ve all seen the basements of grandparents who lived in the same home for 40 years.
They are filled to the brim with decades old items that have been collected over a significant portion of a lifetime.
If you want to avoid this fate in your own home, then you need to find every opportunity to get rid of things that you don’t need. This could be when a child grows up and leaves the nest, or when you are remodeling a portion of the home.
The most obvious example of a time to get rid of things is when you are moving, and are forced to go through all of your things.
Stay organized
The easiest way for clutter to pile up in your life is when you don’t even really know what that clutter is comprised of. Disorganization is a state where clutter begins to flourish, because it can be very overwhelming to try to reduce it when you’re not even sure what it is.
For this reason, organization of your living space, and the adherence to that organization, is the best defense you have against clutter.
The pursuit of organization is one time when you actually want to purchase more and more things. Getting shelves, cabinets, trunks, and boxes helps arrange your living space in a way where all of your things are accessible and in a place that makes sense to you.
This prevents things from piling up, indiscriminately. Also remember to keep your storage space organized, too. This link has some great tips for organization tips that will maximize your garage’s storage space.
Value the things you keep
Although organization can help you keep track of clutter, getting rid of things is still going to be the main thing that prevents clutter from building up.
This means that you’re going to need to systematically decide what is really important to you to hang onto. Essentially, getting rid of your belongings is an action that forces you to consider what types of things actually have value to you.
Typically, this value falls upon things that are either immensely useful to you, or things that have certain amount of sentimental value. In both of these cases, it’s important to set a barrier of entry that prevents you from talking yourself into keeping each and every little thing.
Consider if an item is actually useful
For items that you think have utility, consider whether or not it is realistic that you are ever actually going to need it, or if it would be an absolute rarity if you did.
Even if the situation comes up where you do need it, consider if it will be easier to purchase a replacement or borrow from someone else, rather than bend over backwards trying to keep what you already have.
Don’t get sentimental about the wrong things
In the case of items that are sentimental to you, try not to be sentimental about the wrong types of things. People often ascribe happy memories to objects, and have the assumption that letting those objects go means that they are losing those memories, to some degree. However, our experiences shouldn’t always be tied to a physical incarnation.
Category: Family Finances
