Your immediate surroundings affect your mood. And your mood dictates your behavior.
Now, consider the following scenario. You are getting prepared to go to the office, where you have a big creative pitch to deliver. Whether you are preparing for your co-working spaces it should not look so messy. However, your home’s so messy that it takes you an hour to find everything you need for the day.
Inevitably, you will grow more and more frustrated. By the time you’ve gathered all the stuff that took all of your patience to scour, you feel like your day has been ruined.
And you can only wish you could turn things around before you face your bosses and clients for that life-changing pitch. All these problems could have been avoided if you decluttered.
Decluttering is the process of eliminating stuff you don’t need at home. The goal is to live with no more than the essentials.
This lifestyle change has many advantages. For starters, you get to free up space, making your abode look larger and more welcoming. That results in less stress, given that you have fewer things to manage and organize. Before you know it, you’ve achieved the peace of mind you’ve always hankered for.
Decluttering’s great for your finances, too. Once you become keener on separating wants and needs, you’ll find yourself increasingly untethered to consumerism. Your bank account will celebrate. Your credit rating will improve. You’ll be smiling more, and that smile will be as genuine as it can be.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. The first order of business is figuring out the art of decluttering. Here’s your guide:
Be Mindful of Your Shopping
Chances are, you have already accumulated a lot of stuff. A lot of those you have already outgrown, such that you no longer remember or recognize their purpose. If you keep shopping the way you’ve been shopping, your home’s clutter will only get worse. Therefore, the first step in decluttering is rethinking your shopping habit.
If in the past, you would buy anything that strikes your fancy, this time around, be more conscious with every single purchase you make. Take home what you need in all the sense of the word. While this might be hard especially if indiscriminate shopping is already ingrained in you, come up with drastic hacks that’ll help you pull it off.
For example, you can start paying in cash so that you’re more aware of how much you’re spending. Keep in mind that credit cards exacerbate your tendency to shop. Leave them at home if you can.
Repurpose
You might feel like you need to buy something you don’t have at home. Don’t give in to that impulse too easily. Instead of purchasing something new, get creative. Chances are you have stuff at home you could repurpose to serve the same goal as that you plan to buy.
For example, you recently discovered a passion for plants. And you might get tempted to buy pots and planters. Now, open your eyes. Look at your old but sturdy shoe boxes. Or your abandoned pantry containers. Reimagine those as pots and planters. Doing so not only spares you from unnecessary purchases but it helps you do away with useless clutter, too.
Build Momentum
Don’t overwhelm yourself. Instead, ease into the process. It won’t be easy, for sure. But if you give yourself ample time to get used to decluttering, after a while, it will be second nature to you.
Start with 5-minute decluttering initiatives. Within those 5 minutes, commit to the task as fervently as you can. Do not waver.
Once that timeframe becomes too easy-peasy, lengthen the process. Think of it as meditation. You don’t meditate for an hour the first time. You start short and increase commitment as you go along.
Declutter Room by Room
It’s best to have a system. And you can’t go wrong by decluttering room by room.
Start with the smallest space in your home, such as the bathroom. Some people do not pay attention to decorating bathroom space. Chances are that you have an accumulation of toiletry products there that you no longer use. Or perhaps you have stacks of old towels that have already become moldy due to neglect.
Get rid of them and see your bathroom freshen up before your eyes.
After the bathroom, tackle the living room. Next, the kitchen. Save the bedroom for last because that’s where you’ll have to confront a lot of stuff with sentimental value.
Prepare Five Baskets
Decluttering does not mean throwing away stuff you feel you have no use for anymore. Such is a bit too unexciting and uninspiring when, in fact, decluttering is one of the most engaging organization ideas out there. That is if you do it ready with five baskets. Each basket denotes what you intend to do with things you come across while organizing.
- First, have a basket for things you need to re-store. These are still valuable stuff that, for some reason, has wandered away from their designated hiding place in the house.
- Second, you need a basket for recyclables or those you could repurpose.
- Third, things you can’t let go of but require mending or fixing go to the mend-or-fix basket.
- Fourth, useless stuff you pull out from every nook and cranny of your home goes into a trash basket.
- Lastly, have a charity basket for some of your trash that could be another person’s treasure.
Be Properly Guided
From the onset of your decluttering project, write down your goals. If you can estimate the quantity of the stuff you want to remove from your home, do so. That will allow you to pursue the process with a clear vision. The worst mistake you could do is to haphazardly go about it and end up even more dissatisfied than when you started.
Set a timeline for your initial decluttering round, too. That way, you know just when to stop.
Wrapping Up
Make no mistake; it’s not easy to do a 180 and decide to pursue a minimalist lifestyle stories. However, it’s perfectly doable. And it begins with decluttering your home. Commit to this guide and rest assured, you’ll reap all the rewards you deserve for deciding to choose what most matters to you.
Author’s Bio:
Valerie Taylor is a freelance writer for Avida Land and also a book enthusiast. She usually writes about home improvement, lifestyle and real estate. In her spare time, she’s with her friends discussing cake recipes or practicing yoga.
