Clutter is probably causing you more stress than you realize right now. When life is stressful, and our calendar is jam-packed with activities, we all need a quiet and clean home that we can come back to relax. That should mean a calm, organized space that feels light, spacious, homely, and safe.
But for too many of us, our homes are just yet another thing that causes stress. And clutter is to blame. Clutter makes a space busy, disorganized, dusty, and hard to clean. Conversely, if your space is emptier, you’ll be able to keep it looking pristine with minimal work.
So how do you go about reducing that clutter?
Learn to Detach
To declutter, first, you must detach. How many items do you have that you never use but that you feel you can’t get rid of because they were a gift? Or because they have some kind of sentimental value?
Of course, sentimental objects are important, and we should all have a few keepsakes. But this can go too far if it means you feel the urge to hold on to every last item that you’ve ever owned!
If you are keeping items in memory of someone, then how about keeping just one gift? And if you’re worried about hurting feelings, you can always lie and say the item broke!
Break Collections
When it comes to hoarding clutter, one of the very worst things you can do is to view something as a collection. You probably think of your DVDs as a collection, and there’s a good chance you made sure to include every DVD in a particular category, or that you feel says something about you. Now you can’t throw any away without ruining your massive collection! This is a big cognitive shift, but as soon as you realize that collections don’t mean anything, decluttering will become much easier!
Take a Pause
When you’re thinking of buying anything new, always take a pause. There are a lot of factors that contribute to a purchase and many of these have been purposefully designed by marketing and sales teams to prey on our emotions. When we purchase because we have gone away to think about something and then come back to it, that means that we genuinely need or want the item.
