Living in a cluttered environment can affect your sense of well-being. Whether it’s your home or office that’s cluttered, it causes stress and reduces productivity and you may not even be aware of it. Although many people recognize that getting organized will greatly improve their lives, they have a difficult time getting it done. Below are some tips to help you get started.
First, focus on your end goal. Depending on how cluttered your environment is, you may have a big project on your hands but if you focus on the amount of work you’ll need to do rather than how it will feel once you’ve got a clean and organized environment, you may be tempted to give up before you even get started.
If you’re the sort of individual that gets energized by a goal but loses motivation if you can’t finish a project in one day, you will have to change your thinking. It may not be possible to get it all done in one day and so you may have to take it in stages over several days or week-ends.
The best place to start once you’ve got an image of what you would like to accomplish is to pick up some cheap cardboard box files for sorting purposes. Label one or more of them “Keep”, “Donate” or “Garage Sale” and “Garbage”. Then move systematically room by room and place items in the boxes that you’ve labelled.
Before you get started with the sorting however, there are some rules that you need to follow. If you’re sorting clothes for example and you come across an item that you haven’t worn in more than a year or that doesn’t fit, get rid of it. If you’re sorting through magazines and you haven’t opened any of them for more than 3-6 months – get rid of them. If you’re sorting through broken toys that you keep meaning to repair but haven’t found the time, throw them out. And, if you’re sorting through old paid bills, keep a least one year’s worth but if you’re sorting income tax returns, keep those papers going back for at least 7 years.
Finally, put your “keepers” away but if you find that you haven’t got enough space, you may need to pick up some storage containers. If that doesn’t help then you’ll need to evaluate if you’ve got an emotional attachment to your stuff.
You need to ask yourself if throwing away things causes you anxiety. Does getting rid of things feel wasteful to you? If the things are broken, then you can’t donate them or sell them so unless you have a recycling program in your neighborhood, you should throw them out. If you have trouble doing this you will need to work on your mental clutter before you’ll be able to let go of your physical clutter.
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