One of my New Year’s resolutions was to clear the clutter from my life, physically and mentally. I never realized how weighed down the objects in my life made me feel until I started getting rid of all the “dead weight.”
In recent years it seems I have acquired more clutter than I realized. To eliminate this problem, I am spending more energy on being mindful of my future purchases and cleaning out what I don’t need.
Ready to feel lighter and kick out clutter from your life for good? Here are my top 5 tips!
1. Start small
I started with one small task a day with things I didn’t need to try on or search for. Nail polish, jewelry, makeup, etc. This was a great way to get going and prevent feeling overwhelmed. I could look at something and just know if I wanted to trash or stash. It’s amazing how de-cluttering even a little category of stuff is motivating.
2. Round up your categories
Before de-cluttering I would gather all my stuff of that category. If the day’s category was paper, I take a box, walk around the house and throw all the paper clutter in it, then I turn on some music and dive in. This also helped when I moved on to other categories so that I didn’t find more paper clutter and become distracted.
3. Make it fun!
I mentioned listening to music but you could do anything to make it fun. Listen to a podcast or audio book, your favorite show on Netflix, whatever you have to do to make it fun. I get too distrcted if I am watching something so I made a playlist of my favorite songs for when I have to do things I am not always looking forward to. Cleaning, de-clutering, working out… it gives me something to look forward to so I don’t dread the task.
4. Digital clutter counts
How often do you scroll through your junk email and actually delete emails? If your like me you read the subject line and if it’s not a coupon, the email is never opened. Clear out your digital clutter like junk mail, unused apps, duplicate files that take up memory space. You can use free services like Unroll.Me to quickly unsubscribe you from email lists
5. Prevention is key
Clutter is a constant battle so set yourself up for success with a few guidelines.
Toss junk mail the minute it arrives, recycle old magazines as soon as they’re read, sort through clothes at the end of each season. Routine little steps make a big difference in the long run!
It feels great to have less stuff demanding my attention and I don’t miss a single thing!
Collectively,
Karmen
[…] a year ago I made this post about my quest for minimalism. Since then I have done a decent amount of downsizing and purging of general clutter but primarily […]