If you’ve recently moved houses, you’d believe that the average household has about 300,000 “things” inside. It’s something we all do; hold on to objects, and often even struggle to identify it as “clutter”.
One of the main reasons we hold onto things is sentimental attachment. Objects hold memories and feelings. Getting rid of them feels like we’re abandoning a part of our lives, so there’s a feeling of guilt. Fear is another reason — fear of abandoning, of letting go, fear of the unknown, and also the feeling of ‘what if we need it in the future?’. Holding on to things serves as a form of protection or security, a sense of comfort and familiarity.
Decluttering is always a cathartic exercise, and in today’s times, we have access to ‘experts’ who can help us declutter and organise our spaces. There seems to be a general misconception that only the hoarders and compulsive shoppers need expert advice to sort out their space.
In her experience as a declutter coach, Shelina Jokhiya, founder of DeCluttr Me, feels that when she’s helping clients to declutter and organise, it’s usually clear that it’s not a spending problem to blame for having too many possessions in one place. There are many reasons why people accumulate so much stuff that they can’t get rid of. And the more it mounts up, the more the dreaded clutter cloud hangs over their head. This can be overwhelming, making it harder to know where to start.
However, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, ‘now’ is actually the best time to start and create major change in your home — and to experience a sea change that will positively impact all areas of your life.
Jokhiya shares some simple tips to tackle the problem head-on, and help people tackle their clutter:
1.Don’t try and tackle it all at once. Instead, start with a mini-declutter —spend 15-20 minutes decluttering items from a small area in a room, such as a kitchen shelf, a coffee table, or a hanging area. The next day, move onto another manageable area in the same room. If you commit to doing that every day, you will have decluttered an entire room in a week.
2.Once you have removed items, sort the remaining items in each area into broad categories and organise a space for them.
3.Moving forward, follow the “Buy 1, Get Rid of 2” rule: when you buy something new, get into the habit of clearing out two existing items (preferably, in the same bracket as what you have purchased).
4.If that feels a bit extreme, keep a bag in your wardrobe and every time you find something you don’t like, don’t use or wear, or can’t fit into, put it in the bag. Once the bag is full, take the items to the donation bin or charity shop. If you do this regularly, you cover the “Buy 1, Get Rid of 2” rule without thinking about it.
5.More storage is not the solution — finding a bunch of new baskets, bins and containers for your clutter is counterproductive. Bringing in more storage to house and hide your junk might seem like a quick fix now, but it’s a waste of money.
6.When storing linen, put the full clean set in a pillow case to save you searching for different parts when it’s time to do your bed.
7.Be wary of bargains — it’s not a bargain if you never eat, wear, use or enjoy it. So stop falling for the marketing tricks and hold onto your hard-earned cash.
8.Stop stockpiling — stop keeping on things you rarely eat or use. Your home is not a warehouse.
9.Say no to freebies — refuse giveaways because the price of clutter is too high for most of us. Plus, the mass-production of common free gifts like caps, T-shirts, mugs and pens is terrible for the planet.
10.In today’s world, clutter is not only physical; digital detritus can weigh us down just as much. With digital clutter, use the acronym FAT — File, Act, Toss — to deal with any emails and paperwork that enter your life. As soon as something comes in, see if you can file it in a folder, act on it within two minutes or toss it into the dustbin. When you receive junk mail, always unsubscribe before deleting it. Once you make this a habit, you will gradually get rid of more emails with the aim of dealing with 10 or less in your inbox each day.
11.Finally, if you have a really huge amount of emails, take all of them from one year and put them in a folder. While watching a movie or an easy-to-follow TV series, start going through (grouping them in threads) and delete the ones you don’t need. You’ll be amazed at how many emails you can get rid of during a two-hour movie.