Think about it - it's your stuff....you or someone who loves you enough to give you a gift spent good, hard earned money on it.
Why De-clutter?
There are a variety of reasons to declutter. Do you have a room somewhere that looks like this?
I found this picture on the internet, and I think it's either someone's basement or garage. This sort of mess happens gradually because we end up with a dumping station where we put the things we don't know what else to do with "for now" and we tell ourselves we will clean this up later. With the passage of time the stack grows and our sense of being overwhelmed grows too. Soon, nobody wants to deal with the mess because it will take the entire weekend to make an improvement.
I am going to discuss today WHY we de-clutter, WHAT is the mindset behind clutter, HOW we feel when we de-clutter and the basics of the METHOD to decluttering.
First I have to point out that clutter can be dangerous. Look again at that picture above. You can't safely navigate your way across the room. What if there was a fire and your cat got scared and hid amongst this mess? You would have a problem. In addition to this, our physical balance becomes less and less efficient with each year that we age (unless you are good about exercising) and you could easily loose your balance in a mess like this under ordinary circumstances and hurt yourself.
My sister sent me a link about how clutter in drawers can be very dangerous and cause a fire.
To see the article Click Here.
Why De-clutter?
There are a few reasons to de-clutter.
1. For physical safety
2. It holds us back mentally
3. It takes up physical space.
A tremendous amount of our time can be spent each day navigating our way around the clutter we keep. If your kitchen is packed with gadgets, pots, pans, dishes and things you aren't really using, you have to keep moving these around to get to what you do need.
If the basement, laundry room or garage is where you store all the things that don't have any other place to keep, you have to dig through the stacks every time you need something. This all takes extra time, and it drags you down inside, and can be a safety issue.
What is the mindset behind clutter?
The mindset behind clutter is emotionally based caution. We look at these things and there is a lot of emotional attachment our belongings. We keep things for a variety of reasons.
1. It was a gift and we feel obligated to keep it.
2. We keep old things we want to give to our kids or grand kids one day.
3. We spent SO MUCH MONEY on that stuff back in it's prime, and even though it's worth
virtually nothing now, we feel like we are throwing away our money to get rid of it. Have you
ever bought a stereo or DVD player, and you spent good, good money on that, and even though
the technology is now too old to even hook up with your current system, you just have such
trouble letting it go? This phenomenon can been found in most homes.
4. We keep clothes we plan to loose weight and fit into again.
5. We keep old school books, either because it's our personal writing, or they were expensive
textbooks.
6. We keep things that remind us of our past, or our kids past.
The challenge in facing our clutter mindset is to cherish our memories and be able to let the clutter go. As much as our things remind us of our past, we can't go back in time, we can't live in the past, we can only be in the present.
Have you ever stumbled upon an old box of things that were forgotten, and after you relish the memories for a few minutes you realize that you now have to manage these items again?
I want to challenge you to evaluate just how many sentimental things you need to keep? Take the mental challenge to start de-cluttering your home and your life.
How does de-cluttering make us feel?
This is both the best and toughest part.
1. You can feel emotionally torn.
2. Then you feel free!
You are flexing mental muscles that are tough to flex when you face up to your clutter. It takes a big person to face the clutter and make the decisions to let some of this stuff go.
Once you move past the emotional angst of getting rid of something, you will discover you feel so free after it's gone.
Perhaps you have something that was given to you as a gift. You don't really care for it, you don't really use it, but you just don't know how to face that person if they discover you got rid of the gift. This is feeling obligated to keep something. There is nothing wrong with moving that item out. How do you do it? You give it away or sell it, and if you are ever in a situation that the gift item comes up in conversation, you explain that you really appreciated the gift, but did not have enough storage space for the item, and you weren't using it, and you found someone that really wanted it, so you gave it to them to enjoy.
The same goes for our diet clothes, old books, expensive stereos no longer in use, etc. You can decide to give these away or sell them so that someone else can enjoy these items, and you no longer have to manage them.
ONLY YOU have to live in your house with your clutter or non-clutter. You are free to keep or not keep as needed. If it doesn't make you happy, or you need it, let it go.
In return you will have new found space to see and easily manage what you do own, and really enjoy the things you decided to keep. This reward is also YOURS ALONE.
WHAT do you de-clutter?
This list is almost self explanatory.
1. Things that you no longer want
2. Things that you no longer need or use.
3. Things you are keeping out of obligation.
We all have some sentimentals we keep. I still have my wedding dress in a storage container, and my wedding bouquet flowers were dried and stored in a jar. I have 2 boxes of my kids best baby clothes and pictures. A few boxes doen't take up that much space. MANY boxes does. I let go of almost all the kid's childhood books, toys, strollers, wagons, etc. (I kept the kids though - LOL!)
The same with my things, I have a handful of things from my childhood that I have kept, but current things that I don't use are out the door!
Do you see I am not against sentimentalism? We are allowed to cherish our things of the past, but we have to be reasonable about how much we keep.
If if helps to know....my family still has to tackle the mess in our garage. This is our space to store things and we get it cleaned up and it gradually fills in again. Now that I am discovering better processes around organizing and storage, I believe that this year we will defeat this monster in our lives! That will be a blog post with before and after pics one day.
Remember, you get rid of clutter, create a storage system and then stick to a routine. It will keep you on track.
Method of de-cluttering.
You are a smart person. I am sure this part is easy to know.
1. Speak very kind to yourself in your inner dialogue. You are a good, smart, talented person who
has tried to keep things and with time it has simply accumulated.
2. It will be a gradual process. Your clutter didn't happen overnight, and you aren't going to fix it in
a day either. Be kind and patient with yourself as you do this process 1 space at a time. Drawer by
drawer, shelf by shelf, box by box.
3. Each space you work on, divide items into what you will KEEP, TOSS or GIVE AWAY.
4. Monitor you newly organized spaces. If it looks like someone put things away sloppy, neaten it
up again. When something new comes home, be willing to let the old one go. Ladies...sigh...this
would include our beloved sweater collections. ha ha!
This is lots to think about. Turn your thinking into action and I promis you that you will start to see the wins. You will gradually de-clutter and organize one space at a time, one day at a time.
Go for it!
Happy de-cluttering!
Cassie
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