Clear Clutter and Find Your Life
The simplest and most complete definition of clutter I can think of is: “clutter is anything in your life that no longer serves you.” It seems our western culture has taught many of us a huge desire to acquire things. We often don’t know when to stop buying, or when to get rid of the things that we don’t really need or want any more.
Part of the reason it is hard to let go of things is the feeling that because we’ve paid good money for them, we are losing money if we get rid of them. We keep a tight grip on these things, not because we still need and use them, but because we don’t recognize that, for us, they have lost their value.
One of the first things to do if you are unhappy or overwhelmed with the possessions you have is to ask yourself what is really important to you.
What exactly will you be losing if you toss them or give them away?
Do your things make you feel happy or fulfilled, or do they cover up an insecure feeling?
How valuable are these things, really, in your life?
So often the acquiring of possessions causes us to lose track of what really matters to us. What is important in life is feeling happy, feeling fulfilled, knowing that you are enough. By getting rid of the extraneous and superfluous things that clutter your home, your life and your relationships, you will figure out just who you are and what you really care about.
Clutter can keep you living in the past. We forget that the past is just that — the past. It no longer matters. Many of the things we keep are tied to emotions. Emotions are tied to beliefs. If the beliefs no longer serve us or allow us to move ahead in our life, then its time to let those items go. By doing so, you will find a lightness and relief in your heart.
As you begin to declutter, you’ll realize just how much of yourself you’ve invested in your things. You may realize that by hanging on to the things that no longer serve you, you have been preventing yourself from being able to change and grow.
So, make a decision to let go of the clutter that is dragging you down. Ignore the advertising and old memories that have given you a feeling of lack, and a mind-set of want. An object, regardless of what it is will not make you a better or happier person — at least not for long.
Once the initial excitement of owning that new dress or new appliance or new car is gone, you are still the same person inside. Break away from the belief that things will make you happy and fulfilled.
As you have these enlightening thoughts, the desire to toss that clutter will become overwhelming. Once you begin the act of decluttering, you will probably find it takes on a life of its own.
Turbo Charge Your Life
Have you heard the story about the divorced mom who successfully started a business, but hit a stagnant period in its growth?
Once she received her divorce and had to search for a serious job to support herself and her child, she had to give up her first love of community theater. It obviously wasn’t paying the bills. But more than that she couldn’t justify spending the large amount of time required away from her child or her job.
She had stashed a large box of scripts and other memorabilia from her stage days under the kitchen table, since there was no other room for them after she downsized from a house to an apartment.
Finally, she had kicked the box one too many times and made the decision to toss it. Out it went. One box of clutter. Not only did she realize she felt good about getting rid of the box, but she also felt an immediate emotional release. She finally recognized that theater was — at least for now — an activity that was in her past.
Her time, she now realized, should be spent on her business and her child. As soon as the box hit the curb, curiously, it seemed as if the floodgates opened on her business. Her profits and activity soared to the next, very successful, level of income.
This is not an unusual experience, according to Lynne Johnson, a professional organizer from Quincy, Mass. She’s also president of the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization. Johnson acknowledges she regularly sees a link between individuals who get exasperated and intolerant of both their body weight and the clutter in their home at the same time.
More than one individual has made the decision, Johnson says, to change the way they live. They say to themselves: I’m not going to live like this any longer. I’m not going to hang on to this clutter. And then in the next breath say: I’m not going to hold onto my weight another moment longer.
Another professional de-clutter expert, Peter Walsh puts it this way in his book, “Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?“:
“Clutter gets in the way of living the life you want. It makes it hard to breathe. It makes it hard to move. It makes it hard to see clearly. It makes it hard to focus and stay motivated. You have to clean outside to get clean inside… As your space becomes clutter-free and pleasant, it’s easier to see your priorities and make the right choices.”
The releasing of the clutter brings that serendipitous consequence of providing a better income… improving a personal relationship… or even that weight loss you had been struggling with for so long.
Ready to change your environment? Then be ready to turbocharge the quality of your life as well
Declutter the Bathroom
So . . . the last time you had company and they wanted to use your bathroom, what did you tell them? Did you feel you had to sheepishly apologize for its appearance? Or did you quickly rush in and toss things into the cabinet below the sink?
If your bathroom is that cluttered, then we need to tackle it right now! It’s almost as frightening as your closet but we can have you back on track in now time flat – guaranteed.
First, let’s tackle that medicine cupboard. If you open this door will “things” fall out of it? First of all, take a critical look at your medications – both prescription and over-the-counter. You’re about to toss everything out that has expired. If you have any medicine that is no longer current, you’re going to get rid of it. No questions asked. (And this is more than just a clutter issue — and you know it!)
Not only is this just wasting space, but this could be dangerous. Taking expired medicine has untold ramifications – so be sure to go through each shelf in your house where you may be storing any type of medication (many of us keep it in the kitchen!). Get rid what’s old and expired! Prescriptions that were not used can often be returned to the pharmacy for disposal – much safer that tossing them into the toilet or the garbage.
Got beauty products you haven’t used in at least three months? Whether they’ve officially expired or not, toss them. Once they’re opened, the oils with which they’re made can go rancid. And that’s hardly healthy for your skin!
Take all those old toothbrushes and put them in the garbage. Dentists recommend that you buy new toothbrushes every two months, but how many of us really do? Not only do toothbrushes collect germs over time, but they also become less effective in cleaning your teeth. Go buy three or four of them at once and you’ll be set for quite awhile.
Let’s clear out the shower/bathtub now. Grab those empty shampoo bottles, extra bars of soap, and old razors. Wipe everything down, and set a new bar of soap and just one bottle of shampoo and one of conditioner within easy reach.
Now it’s time for the toilet area – is their an excess of “reading material” around here?Do you really need to keep a whole library here? If so, clear them out, or find a better way to store just a few of them.
And finally, clear out that under-the-sink cabinet. If it holds any empty bottles, old towels, magazines and so on, get rid of them. This space should be for storing bathroom essentials, such as toilet paper. Even cleaning stuff should be removed, as its safer up in a shelf in the cleaning closet.
Now, doesn’t your bathroom look great?
The #1 Way to Put More Living in Your Living Room
Quick, make your living room larger!
I know it was here when I left for the grocery store. Maybe I shouldn’t have left it alone with a husband, two teenage boys and a golden retriever. Now I can’t seem to find it.
What is it that you’re looking for? Oh? Oh! Your living room! Yes, that could become a problem. Are you sure it’s under all this clutter. Don’t panic, we’ll find it. Yes, yes, I know you need it tonight, guests are coming!
For some house holds, the living room is the heart of the house, where we gather to watch TV, play board games, video games, do homework, have those serious heart-to-hearts, and spend time together.
We do a lot of living in this room, and sometimes it seems way too small for all that living. There’s a much easier way to make your living room larger. You may have to make a decision or two. But it’s a very quick fix to what very well
Look at your furniture! Yes, take a real good look at it.
In many living rooms, we try to stuff as much furniture as possible into it. Having oversized furniture or just too much furniture in a room that it doesn’t fit will make the entire room seem more cluttered.
If this is the case, you really need to rethink your furniture! Perhaps a brand new furniture set is out of your price range right now, and that’s totally understandable. But if you’ve had another set in mind, and have some of the money saved towards it, why not use what’s already there to make up the difference.
Consider going to a website like Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace and selling your old furniture to help your New Furniture Fund. Even if you don’t sell everything, just getting rid of pieces that aren’t used and are taking up extra space can make your living room seem more open and welcoming.
Maybe too much furniture isn’t the problem. Look at how you’ve arranged what you have. What you should do right now is to close your eyes, and try to visualize how you would like your living room to look. Figure out your goal for that room, and if some of the items don’t add to the realization of that goal, get rid of them.
How to Clear a Room in 9 Minutes Flat
Grab a bin. Or a laundry basket. Or a box. Something easy to carry and deep, that will hold plenty.
Going clockwise around the room, pick up everything that doesn’t belong or is out of place and throw it in the bin. This works great for toys, but clothing can get tossed in there, as well as makeup, jewelry and anything that simply doesn’t belong there.
This will eliminate 90% of the clutter, and it should take two minutes, tops. Now, you can stash the bin in a closet for emergencies or future family cleaning sprees, or you can spend the next 7 minutes putting things where they should be, in that room.
Any toys that belong in that room, put back in the toy chest. Books go on the bookshelf. The jewelry gets put in the jewelry box. Leave the dirty laundry in the bin for now.
Are there items from other rooms in there? Great. Take the bin and go to those rooms, and put things back where they belong. Make your last stop the laundry room, and dump the clothing in the washing machine.
Simple, easy, and hassle free.
If your child happens to be a teenager, or rambunctious boy, the room probably smells freshly of dirt, sweat, and dirty laundry. It happens.
To remedy this, take a dryer sheet and put one in the bottom of every drawer, at least one at the bottom of the dirty laundry bin, and a few in the closet, wrapped around a hanger or taped to the back of the wall.
Sound extreme? Maybe, but dryer sheets are cheap and easy to replace. Try it and see (or smell) the amazing difference it makes as they slowly release the scent into the air. Change them once a week to once every two weeks, and you’ll be far more willing to step into your child’s bedroom.
5 Easy Steps to Decluttering a Bedroom
Do it RIGHT NOW!
Pick a bedroom, any bedroom. It can be one of your children’s, or if you’re brave enough it can be yours. Every bedroom seems to be a natural magnet for clutter. Think about it.
It’s out of the way of guest traffic and its easy enough to close the door instead of getting busy and de-cluttering it or cleaning it. A hallway with the doors to the bedrooms closed looks quite nice. Of course, that sign your teenager has hanging on his door “Enter at your own risk” is a giveaway of clutter… and more inside!
All of that aside, you just may be in need of the “turbocharged” de-cluttering system. Here is a quick way to make any bedroom look a little bit better from the very start:
Five East Steps to De-Cluttering a Bedroom
1 Empty the waste basket.
Yes, it’s that simple. Of course, even you can see that it’s brimming over with tissues, candy bar wrappers, old pantyhose, old newspapers and more.
2. Straighten the Piles of Books and Magazines.
Nope. You don’t even need to find a home for them. Try it. Just straightening them, and stashing them up against a wall makes a bedroom appear a little more wide open. Try it — I guarantee it’ll work.
3. Use a Basket As Temporary Storage.
This is especially helpful for a girl’s bedroom. Take all that stuff, from make up to earrings and necklaces, and place it in a basket. Now you can actually see the dresser top. You actually haven’t solved the problem yet, but you’ve certainly tamed it some – and sometimes that’s all we can hope for. This works for toys that clutter the bed or floor as well, providing the basket is large enough.
4. Make the Bed
A bed that’s actually made helps a room look more organized and well, civilized. Even if you replace some of those books that your children are using back on the bed (perhaps you can arrange them a little nicer) a bed that’s made pulls the bedroom together.
5. Run the Vacuum Cleaner
Performing this one single task can make the room look vastly more decluttered and clean. It’s truly amazing. Of course, this isn’t so easy to do if there are 7,000 items laying around the floor!
If unexpected company calls and you can do nothing else with a bedroom, run the sweeper quickly through the room. Then stand back a moment before that doorbell announces them and view the difference with just that one small chore completed.
How Much Do You Need?
Exactly how many cups does a family of four or five need? No, this isn’t a Zen riddle. How many coffee or tea or even hot chocolate drinkers are there in your family?
If you’re like many of us, you probably own several distinct sets of cups and glassware. Brace yourself emotionally. You’re about to decide if you really need to keep them all.
At least four to six of those cups undoubtedly belong to a set of dishes. If you have the dishes and use this set regularly, then you automatically know you’re keeping the cups as well (First decision made!)
If you don’t have the entire set, then perhaps you really don’t need those particular cups or mugs. Be brutally honest with yourself and toss them or give them to charity or the local recycling depot.
Do the same thing with any “souvenir” mugs and cups you’ve collected from your vacations (or others have given you) that just don’t appeal to you anymore. I’m not going to make you toss mugs that your grandchildren or children have given you. Some items are worth their weight in sentimental gold!
Use the same process with every other item in your cabinets. Go through your glassware. You still have that sippy cup? If there’s no sentimental value to it, toss it. But be honest about why you’re keeping it. Perhaps it’s better suited to living in the attic with the children’s old things. But then… why are you keeping those?)
We all have dishes we seldom use because they’re chipped or mismatched. If you don’t use these dishes – and have plenty of others for your meals – then either toss them, or give them to charity.
Pots and pans… casserole dishes… pie pans… all live and die by this rule. If you can’t remember the last time you used it, or you have three of them, then you probably don’t need it.
Remember, the clutter in didn’t happen to appear overnight, and it won’t just disappear on its own overnight. This takes some work and some decision-making. If you’re holding on to things you don’t need, figure out why. Memory? Hope? Gift? Inertia?
Now, recognize and celebrate every shelf and space that you’ve cleared. That will motivate you to continue.
Clutter: More Than A Spatial Problem
Haven’t tackled your closet and clothes yet? While your spouse may say you’re just putting it off or being lazy, your subconscious mind may be avoiding it.
Clearing clothes that are currently two sizes too small may mean you have to come to grips with your current weight. It may mean that you have to admit to yourself you may never lose those 25 or 30 pounds you had dreamed you could. (Did you know that there is often a correlation between clutter and weight?)
Of course, you could deal with this easily enough. Toss those clothes out anyway. . . but promise yourself when you do lose that weight, you’ll buy yourself new clothes that are currently in style.
Then dive into investigating the healthiest way to maintain a weight loss program. (Why not deal with two goals at once!)
Donating books to the local library book sale… books you’ve never read but keep meaning to? Well, you’re not really procrastinating. You are just having a difficult time recognizing how busy your life has become.
You’re probably still having trouble letting go of the fact that those leisurely evenings when you had a chance to read that red hot fiction have been taken over by of a host other activities.
But here is a cool way you may be able to deal with this situation. Donate every book that’s sitting around that you’ve not had time to read and don’t think you get around to… except for one. Choose that one that has the most appeal. Then place it prominently in your bathroom.
Yes, you read that right… the bathroom. Then on your next truly hectic day, run into the bathroom at lightning speed, lock the door, run the water, measure out the right amount of bubble bath liquid. Then put a half cup more in for good measure.
Now enjoy a long leisurely bath and oops… look at what just happened to be in here too! That one book you saved during your de-clutterization process. What a serendipitous coincidence!
On another note, perhaps one of the hardest things anyone can do is clear the house of the possessions of a spouse or other family member who has passed away. This is an emotionally draining experience. Yet it’s a necessary step in dealing with the grief.
In this particular instance it’s difficult to find a bright side. It may be easier to bring in a trusted family member or friend to help you. In fact, if the friend can perform the actual physical removal of the items while you explain which things need to go, it certainly will lighten your load. It’s important to realize that the ‘thing’ is not the memory or the person you’ve loved.
Common sense and a trust in your own inner voice are your guide in decluttering.
Deal With It Now
Did you cringe when you read the title? You’ve already figured out where I’m going with this one. A lot of the clutter accumulates in our homes simply because we refuse to deal with it “in the moment.”
We can take a tip from those Zen masters who always encourage us to “live in the moment.” Now, we can add to that “live in the moment to avoid that clutter.”
This rule is best illustrated by the daily mail. Every day your postal carrier drops mail off in your mail box. What exactly do you do with that mail? If you’re like most of us, you look through it and set it aside. “I’ll deal with it after supper,” you say, as you hurry into the kitchen.
However, you forget all about the junk mail and instead read a good book while you’re watching television.
The next time you find that particular sales flyer for your local grocery store, it is three weeks after the sale has expired. If it didn’t get buried under a mound of other junk mail, it fell under the couch.
Oh, yes, I do understand the nature of clutter.
Instead of putting everything aside, you could have dealt with this in a more efficient matter. You could have taken the few moments to separate the bills and placed them on your desk in a small container, where you’ll sit the next time you pay them.
Take the junk mail and begin to prioritize that. Mail that doesn’t appeal to you at all throw out immediately. Flyers you may want to look at later – like for your trip to the grocery store – set in another basket, preferably one close to where you sit in the evening. In this way, their presence triggers you to at least glance through them.
Now at least you know where it is when you decide to check out this week’s shopping list.
Apply this principle of the Power of Now to other aspects of your life, and you’ll soon find that your clutter is being tamed.
Tips for Efficient Storage
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? What does that have to do with clutter, you ask?
Nothing really. But there’s a question that closely parallels that classic inscrutable question.
Is this particular appliance out of sight and stashed away because you don’t use it often? Or you don’t use it very often so you stashed it out of site and it’s hard to get to?
It’s easier to show you what I mean than to take the time to explain. We usually do this quite naturally when it comes to the “efficiency” of our kitchens.
And I do this most when it comes to my morning coffee. (Let’s get those early morning priorities straight!) My coffee maker is placed on the counter that is immediately below my coffee cups. My coffee beans are stored in a large bin righ below the counter, along with my coffee grinder.
If I were to place my coffee grinder on the opposite side of the kitchen that set up wouldn’t serve me well. Two events would likely occur. First the coffee grinder would never get back to its proper home across the kitchen. Or I’d give up grinding coffee and switch to using that pre-ground stuff. (Nope, I would never give up drinking coffee!)
As you can plainly see “efficient storage” means nothing less than placing the objects you intend to use in the most accessible places. Did that pancake griddle land under the sink because you never used it? Or you just didn’t know where else to store it?
If you really want to give it another chance, try storing it where it’ll be handy for you to use.
Another useful tip along these lines is to store similar items together. For example, if you have several flower vases, store these together. The next time you reach for a vase, you only have to visit one location to find all of them. There will be no going to the first place, only to realize that the perfect vase is hiding under the stairs in the basement.
