Archived Articles: Life
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© Jacquie Wise – Coach, Counsellor, Speaker, Trainer and Author, specialising in personal, professional and spiritual development
Declutter your Life Part II
All from the simple act of clearing clutter and letting go of the old to make way for the new, people experience improvements at all levels of their lives. In this second part of a two-part article, you will discover how to free yourself of clutter.
Your home (or your office) is a reflection of what is happening in your life. In many cases, that's not a pretty sight!
In the first part of this article, I defined clutter as anything you don't love, use, or refer to at least once a year. If you can't re-use it, repair it, remodel it, recycle it as something else, or retire it for a while, then you need to REMOVE it.
The question is how? What are the most practical steps to take to make what might seem like an insurmountable job manageable and efficient? We have little enough time as it is—how on earth can we find time for a job that is likely to take days, never mind hours.
1 Clear out as you go
Rather than making a separate performance of decluttering, one approach is to throw out something as you come across it. Every time you replace a book in your bookshelf, notice one you haven't looked at in years. Every time you put something away in your wardrobe notice an item rammed in the back shelf that can be donated to charity. Notice items in your kitchen that have passed the use-by date. Simply get rid of things one a time as you come across them.
Every time something new is brought into the house, get rid of something old. Teach your children to think of those in need and train them to donate old toys or clothes on a regular basis, perhaps seasonally.
2 Allocate a place for everything
…And put everything in its place. One of the major reasons for clutter is that we don't store things in the right places, so we forget we even have them.
The secret is to store like with like.
Decide with your family where certain things belong, label the new home so everyone remembers, and whenever someone comes across an item somewhere else, they can simply move it to where it now belongs. In time, all your sports gear will be in one place, all photographic equipment together, perhaps close to where you store your photo albums, all sound/recording equipment with related wires and batteries together, and so on. Tidying up the new homes can be a separate exercise, one shelf at a time.
Efficient people don't rely on memory to find an item. They rely on logic – the thing has to be where other items of the same kind are. The same can apply to books. If you store them in categories such as novels, art, politics, or personal development, you won't have to spend hours hunting for the one you want.
3 Diminish volume
If you have hundreds of old photographs lying around in packets or on your computer, pick out the best and throw the rest away. Tear out pictures or articles from magazines and file them, throwing away the rest. These are the kind of jobs that can be done in front of the television in small stages.
4 Make sentimental keepsakes special
If you keep everything, what's going to stand out as special? Keep one or two items or photos that represent a person or era; you don't have to keep every single memento to remind yourself of those moments that make you smile.
5 Have an 'undecided' box
If you're worried about regretting decisions to get rid of things, try putting them into a box. Keep it sealed in and out-of-the-way place. Just date it on the outside, but make no note of the contents. If after one year you can't remember what's in it and have missed nothing, get rid of it without opening it!
6 Have regular clean-outs
Go through documents or cupboards at least once a year to sort out, throw out, or archive unused or outdated items. Don't clutter up your 'live' spaces with 'dead' things.
And if it's all too much and you want to have a blitz, consider getting help from someone who can make it all happen faster, without overwhelming you. Whichever approach you choose, you owe it yourself to experience the same sense of liberation others have felt when they have dealt with the clutter in their lives.
Wise Words
Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realise they were the big things.
Robert Brault