Baby steps.
Clutter clearing is no small task, but the results of your efforts can be life-changing. Begin with baby steps, because your clutter did not happen in one day, one week or one month. It happened over time and in many ways.
Ways you gather stuff
One of the ways you gathered your clutter around you is family. Things get handed down or given to you. Even though you don’t care for them, or wouldn’t buy them for yourself, or you don’t like the energy; you say yes to please a family member.
Sometimes you may get caught babysitting that huge black leather couch for your friend who might want it back someday because she’s in transition.
You may be a hunter gatherer – for bargains. You simply cannot resist, and you end up with items still in packages with tags on. Now you’ve got too much stuff and don’t know what to do with it. There is no shame in any of this. We are human. The key is to find a way to let it go.
Selling a house?
If you are selling a property, you may be in a time crunch. You want your prospective buyers to easily imagine themselves in your space. So, let’s use that situation, or a make-believe situation like that, to begin.
- Pretend you need to move.
- Pick ONE room in your house. Let’s pick the kitchen, buyers always take a careful look at a kitchen.
- Get 5 sturdy cardboard boxes, packing tape and a marker. Label the boxes:Keep, Give Away, Recycle (or sell), Trash, Maybe. The Maybe box is when you just cannot decide what to do with a thing, put it in the box. When that box is filled, tape it shut. Put the date on it and DO NOT OPEN on the box. Put the box away, and ignore it for one or two years. If you haven’t needed anything from that box – off it goes (without opening it) to Goodwill.
- Turn on some fun music.
- Clear all the flat surfaces of the kitchen
- Take one drawer or one cabinet
- Dump it out and begin sorting using your boxes. Ask yourself 2 questions: Do I love it? Do I use it? For example: you find 3 can openers. Discard the one that doesn’t work and keep one that you find the easiest to use. The other one goes in the recycle box. Bunny tip: Best to keep a manual can opener in case your electricity is out for days. You need to eat.
NOTE: whatever time you have, set a timer for half that time, and when the timer sounds, use the second half of your time, cleaning the drawer or cabinet and replacing the ‘keep’ items so you can see and access everything.
Even one hour can begin a clutter clearing journey. You’ll be surprised how much lighter you feel and what a pleasure it will be to open that drawer, cabinet or closet.
One cautionary note: don’t dump out a whole room of cabinets or drawers; you could drown in overwhelm.
Baby steps. Baby steps,
Yay, you did it! You see, you can do this.