“When you live surrounded by clutter, it is impossible to have clarity about what you are doing in your life.”
~ Karen Kingston, Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui
Say No to Clutter!
Deep down inside, I think that there is a neat freak in me.
I actually love to clean. I put on my favourite Audible
If I had all the time in the world, I would spend a lot more time cleaning in and around the house to immaculate standards. Alas, ‘tis not so!
Although I am a huge fan of cleaning schedules and to-do lists, I have to work around the needs of my babies who are both under three years of age. Sometimes I can just get through my daily chores and there is barely enough time to do any additional cleaning.
I am not into too much ‘stuff’ as I feel overwhelmed when a room or space is cluttered with many things.
Clutter causes stress, can interfere with our mental wellbeing and leave us feeling uneasy and anxious.
In Feng Shui, it is believed that clutter prevents energy from flowing and represents stagnancy.
On her website Feng Shui For Real Life, Master Practitioner Carol Olmstead says, “…clutter represents postponed decisions and the inability to move forward.”
I like to have a home for everything.
My Pappy (grandfather) used to say, “When you use a thing, put it back!” I still hear his tone of disapproval talking to my teenage self whenever I left some object in a random place instead of its designated home. Pappy was very well organized.
Especially with little children in families, it is easy to accumulate items, and in no time, things can get out-of-hand.
What I do to help me declutter
I would like to share with you a trick I use to help me declutter any area in my home and it cuts down on the amount of time spent sorting, organizing and finding a home for items.
I take a picture of the cluttered area!
Yup, that’s it!
Okay, that’s not all.
After I take the picture (with a smartphone or digital camera), I sit with a pen and paper (and a cup of coffee) and study the picture thoroughly, listing groups of ‘like’ items I may see. For example:
- books
- clothes
- kitchenware
- computer accessories
- things to throw away
- toys
The next step is to assign areas to put away the items. I write down the assigned home for each group of items – books go on the bookshelf, toys in the toy cupboard or toybox, etc.
Once I am finished, I can then go back to the cluttered area and start to put things away with a system and a plan to guide me. It takes me considerably less time to get it done as I already worked out all the details without being physically in the space.
No standing in the doorway staring at the chaos, feeling frustrated and not knowing where to start to declutter.
“Clearing clutter—be it physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual—brings about ease and inspires a sense of peace, calm, and tranquility.”
~ Laurie Buchanan, PhD
If the area that you are decluttering is layers deep in things to sort through, take the picture of what is visible, then sort on paper what you can see in the picture. Next, go clean it up then take another picture of the newly visible layer. Keep doing this until you have finished. You don’t have to do it all once if it is too much for one decluttering session.
I equate this method to having a meal plan rather than standing in front of the fridge or cupboards wondering what to cook for dinner and feeling confused.
By the way, if you take a picture of the contents of your fridge or cupboard you may be able to use the same method to plan your meals.
This works well for large areas too like a garage, storeroom or walk-in closet.
Once you are done, you can either take an after picture so you can see and celebrate your progress or simply delete it.
If you try this method, let me know if it helped you with the decluttering process and feel free to share any tips you may have to prevent and eliminate clutter.
Stay motivated!
Books on cleaning, organizing and decluttering that I recommend:
