Clutter is a powerful source of stress, anxiety and depression. It causes problems with our relationships and with our physical and mental health. And yet it is so prevalent in our society. It’s interesting to look up the definition of “clutter”. And, of course, we all have our own definition. (One person’s clutter is another person’s happy place.)
One of the issues with clutter is that there are so many ways to get things into our houses, (and lives). Quite a lot of money and effort is spent trying to influence us to buy more things (and sign up for more activities). But we are pretty much left to our own devices when it’s time to let things go. (Also, it seems a lot more enjoyable to obtain something than it does to let it go.)
So, here are some ideas of what to do if you are stressed by your clutter.
- Get rid of one thing every day. No need to make this complicated. Just pick one random thing and get rid of it. When you run out of clutter, you can stop. This is actually kind of fun. It’s fun to see what item you will pick to let go of.
- Spend 15 minutes a day decluttering.
- If you bring something new into the house, get rid of two items. Did you know that the average American household has 300,000 items? (I’m not sure if they count socks as one item or two.)
- Pretend you are moving to a house half the size of the one you are in now. If you don’t love something, don’t move it. Since you’re really not moving, just let it go.
Sifting through clutter and making decisions about things is a good way to get in touch with yourself. You realize that you’ve changed; you find out what is still important to you …and what isn’t.
