Declutter Your Life

To declutter your life means to declutter your home, your mind and the space around you.  In the words of Allen P Rathey “Cleaning out your clutter can be cathartic, and it’s the first step in organizing your home.  Seeing the top of your counters, desks, and the floor of your closets clean will give you a great sense of accomplishment.”

If you’re like most people, your home has become cluttered.  We all live busy lives and it is easy to set things aside or hide them out of sight because we do not have the time or the energy to deal with them at that exact moment.  Before long our home becomes a cluttered mess and it begins to affect our lives.  To quote Charisse Ward “Clutter causes stress, and clutter is one of the main barriers of productivity”.  Not many people want to live with clutter; however, we accept the clutter because the task to declutter your life feels daunting.

In reality, the task of decluttering is not as daunting as you may think provided you follow a few simple steps.  There are a number of places where clutter accumulates; however, the most cluttered room in people’s homes is their closets.  Although the main purpose of a closet is to hang your clothes, it becomes the catch-all storage area for almost everything.

  • Decluttering your closet begins with finding storage and organizational solutions that work.  Look toward the top of your closet.  Does it have a shelf?  If it does great; if not, put one there.
  • Buy stackable bins.  Stackable bins come in all shapes and sizes and you should be able to locate some that fit nicely into your closet.  Label each of the bins such as gloves, hats, pictures, or even magazines.
  • From my experience magazines always seemed to be a problem.  It is not unusual to glance through a magazine and see something you find interesting and then save the magazine with the intention of getting back to it later on.  What usually happens is the magazine sits there and you never get back to it and those old magazines just keep piling up.  A better idea to saving the magazine is to cut or rip the article out that interests you and place it in a binder.  You can either three hole punch the article or you could buy some clear plastic sleeves in which to put the article before placing it in your binder.   Either way you can save and organize the information you wanted to keep while freeing yourself of the clutter of all your old magazines.

Another area where clutter gathers is under the bed.  One never knows what they will find when they look under the bed.  You may find shoes, boxes, extra bedding just to mention a few of the item that accumulate there.  Organizing the area under your bed is a simple solution to helping solve your storage problems.  If you still need extra space there are simple solutions to your under the bed storage problems.

  • If your bed sits low to the ground consider buying bed lifts to maximize the space you have under the bed.
  • Space bags work great to hold bulky items.  Space bags allow you to suck the air out of the bag reducing its size for easier storage.
  • Bins with wheels are another option for under the bed storage.  Rolling bins makes it easy to slide the item out from under your bed for easy access.

Reducing clutter is simply about taking a look at each item you have and asking yourself a few basic questions to determine what you want to keep. Ask yourself:

  • Do you have another item that is better than this one?
  • Is it broken?
  • Are you keeping this item because you would feel guilty getting rid of it?
  • Is it out of style?
  • Have you used the item within the past year?

These are just a few of the techniques you will learn within the pages of ClutterFreeSecrets.  Answering these questions will not always be easy; however, if you are truthful with yourself and stay focused it won’t be long before you have a well organized clutter free home.  Remember:  “Your house is your home only when you have jurisdiction over the space” – Joan Kron