Achieving A Clutter Free Lifestyle

Decluttering has many benefits. It frees up space, makes things easier to find, makes a much more relaxing and productive work-space/ home environment and has been shown to be more soothing on the mind. It also creates the opportunity to get rid of stuff you no longer need, find stuff you think you'd lost, and potentially make some money or benefit someone else out by selling or giving unwanted items away.

Where to start.

It can be daunting to take on the task of turning your life into a clutter free existence, the trick is to not try and tackle everything in one go. Choose one area of your life, starting small, and allocate an amount of time in to which you will finish it. Setting this time limit will help prevent getting side tracked into looking through old photos, leafing through books etc and keep you targeted on the task in hand. Starting small will give results quickly that will spur you on.

Yes, no and maybe.

When choosing what goes and what stays, some things will be easy. Your favorite pair of jeans that you wear all the time, no brainer, the juicer you’ve never used, out you go. But what about the less obvious stuff. If you are really not sure if to keep or discard, put it away with other 'maybe' stuff. In time you will get to know if you really do need to keep it. If you dig it out again to use it, keep it, but if you forget about it until you next de-clutter, then it's time it should go.

If you keep it, make sure its valuable to you.

It may be something you use every day, an item that brings joy to you each time you look at it, or something that has true sentimental value. Does the item enhance your life or does it detract from it? Make what you wear, what you use, and how and where you live reflect who you are and how you would like the world to see you. It can be hard to consider getting rid of something if it has been in your life for a significant while. The item may have no use, be of no sentimental value, but still you've had it for a good period of time and have got used to the idea of it being there. You need to change your focus and consider the space in your life as a premium that can only be filled with items more valuable than it. Once you get into the habit of considering this space as a valuable commodity, you will think twice about so readily filling it with stuff of less importance.

Keep decluttering.

Get into the habit of doing a decluttering session on a regular basis. It doesn't have to be a major job each time, but by regularly doing it, a clutter free life can be maintained and enjoyed.