I don’t know about you, but clutter makes me feel terribly uncomfortable. This has not always been so. As a child I was content to be surrounded by chaos, much to my mother’s continuing despair. So at some point I must have evolved as a human being because I realised that clutter is not a good thing to have around. This realisation is validated by recent reports which suggest clutter is actually bad for health!
According to one expert in organisational behavior, having a cluttered and disorganised home can lead to anxiety and cause poor sleep. Clutter sort of overloads the senses, which are not able to process information efficiently. This decreases our ability to focus.
Sounds unlikely? Well consider this: you have lot of food lying around and you wonder what to eat. Your choice may be based on accessibility, perishability and/or convenience. It makes sense that clutter can lead to poor food choices and hence weight gain!
That quote may sound philosophical but it’s simple, really: clutter happens when we procrastinate. We put off clearing up, we put off organising, we put off downsizing and it all builds up.
We may tell ourselves that clutter doesn’t bother us, but at some level it does The reason that clutter upsets us is that it makes us feel overwhelmed. It makes us feel as though there is too much to do and that we will not be able to cope with it all.
You don’t have place to keep all your things. You cannot find what you're looking for. You dislike your living spaces being untidy. You hate the extra effort of having to keep it all clean. Ergo, stress!
We tend to collect too many things – needless, superfluous things; things bought for no reason other than that it seemed like a good idea at the time. They lie there and we don’t know what to do with them.
Some of us seem unable to get rid of things. “There’s nothing wrong with it”, is one reason. “It’ll be useful someday is another”. We give ourselves many reasons not to declutter, pare down and simplify.
Yes, de-cluttering is difficult. It’s a wrench to get rid of familiar things; some of which have served us well. As such the clutter builds up; so does our stress, which in turn impacts health.
It takes time and it takes application of mind to decide what to get rid of and how.
I have a rule of thumb: if you haven’t used it in the past few years you're probably not going to use it in the future. So, so give it away. This handy chart tells you how to de-clutter.
It’ll be worth it! You will thanks yourself for having made the effort.
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