With so many incredible products being offered to us in modern times, it’s easy to build up clutter in the home.  Also, the more busy we are, the harder it is to pick up after ourselves.  You might long for the days when you have surfaces around the home that don’t have dozens of things scattered around them.  Also, it may be nice to get rid of the piles of things in corners, stacked on chair backs, or … who knows where else!  Here are a few tricks that’s are sure to get you back on track, and maybe even consider what having too much stuff is really about:

  1. If you haven’t touched the item in couple years, it might be time to question whether it’s worth keeping around. Keeping this in mind, collecting things like that and putting them in one location might let you better sort out what needs to leave the house, and what is actually worth keeping.  It’s one thing to have a couple items in each room you don’t really need – but seeing them in one spot will give you a visual sense of the baggage you may no longer want around.
  2. Piles are often active items – things you use regularly, or have important things like mail/bills. Often times, you might notice 3-4 piles never seem to go away.  That’s a cue to get a dedicated storage container.  The bigger tip is to get one with easy access.  If you are hiding these things away from yourself, you might end up just piling things on top of the container.  Easy pulling doors or drawers on the container is a good idea
  3. Make it a goal to clear an entire surface, such as a coffee table or counter. Then reluctantly add only the most necessary items.  Treasure the empty surface, and treated THAT like the item you want to hang onto!
  4. Dedicated storage. Many people just rely on stacks here and there.  Having a dedicated storage shelf is usually the only way to centralize the chaos instead of having it strewn about a place.
  5. Clean a little more often. Just doing 10 minutes every couple days is how tidy people stay tidy.  Yes, there’s lots going on, plenty of shows backed up on Netflix.  But, for those who have really clean places, the reason they do is because they spend a little bit of that nervous daily energy by shifting a few things around in a few rooms daily, or nearly as often.  It might seem like an unnatural habit when you start – but the momentum will kick in.  Believe it or not our natural dopamine circuit has room to reward you when you come back later and see a freshly cleaned area.  By forgoing the tidying, we might resort to eating chocolate for the same reward, when all we really needed was a sense of accomplishment.  Cleaning is one of the rare tasks that gives you multi-layer senses of reward – right when you finish, later when you see it, and over all when you have a better sense of life around you, and a little less panic when guests are coming over!
  6. One last tip is to give yourself a once a week De-Cluttering Power Hour. This goes exactly as it sounds.  Every week, pick the area that needs it most and just get to business.  Setting an alarm gives you something small to work towards.  Believe it or not, most people who do this end up going a little further because it just feels good to put another mess behind you – forever gone!
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