Was decluttering your home one of your New Year's goals? Are you striving to live stress free? Clutter comes in various shapes and forms including the physical and emotional. The unwillingness to tackle an unwanted pile may be more than just procrastination. It could also stem from struggling to deal with a messy divorce, or a painful memory.
According to this article, decluttering doesn't just have to be just a goal. It transforms lives. That is if you know how to handle it. Otherwise, the clutter can interfere with your emotional and physical health causing more stress and anxiety.
If you're one of those people who's been trying to get clutter under control for ages with no hope in sight, read on.
Organize your physical clutter
A clean house is a blessing! Sometimes at the end of the day, twenty minutes is all you need to efficiently pick-up the clutter that has made its way to counters, floors, furniture, tables. Everything has a place, and in many cases, that place is the garbage! Waking up to a clean house is a good way to start your day.
The key is to identify problem areas where clutter rapidly accumulates. The kids' rooms are obviously a good place to start, but clutter can be everywhere. For example, do you have kids' books that are destroyed, outgrown or duplicates? Start weeding through them. Doesn't it just feel good to donate all that stuff away?
See if you can purge kids' clothing after each season. What are you pushing off that needs to be purged? Another problem area is the food cabinets. A strategy is to eliminate the products that are hardly used on a day to day basis. What's in your cabinet?
Once your clutter is organized, it's easier to clean your home. For 2016, why not identify three problem areas where clutter rapidly accumulates and start from there?
Implement declutter systems
Ever been in a situation when the kids come home from school, and suddenly, everything becomes unmanageable? This "chaos" can suddenly take over your emotional well-being causing you to feel even more stressed.
One highly productive and practical system is to create an after-school schedule that hangs on a wall, refrigerator or easel with the evening schedule. For example, you could write "dinner" from five to six and "showers" from six to seven.
Kids thrive with routine, and once that routine is implemented, they enjoy looking to see what is next on their evening schedule. This system can be used for anyone. Start today by jotting down an hour by hour schedule. You'll be surprised how smoother your day will go.
The key to implementing systems is to identify the right systems that tackle troublesome areas so you can embrace some new changes. These can be as simple as throwing out junk mail as it comes in, setting up a bill-pay calendar or automatic payments if you can, planning a laundry schedule and a menu and shopping list.
Another system is to find places for various things instead of shoving them in drawers. Will 2016 be the year you'll find places for all that junk hiding in your kitchen drawers?
But of course, these systems go awry when the holidays cause your home to become disorganized and messy.
Learning to declutter your home is about having the willingness to learn new habits and admit that old systems are not working. There is always room for new ones. If you just start by clearing out one small spot, you'll feel productive.
Happy decluttering! Here's to a clean and organized 2016!