Clear the clutter

Clutter can weigh you down.

Clutter is chaotic, especially for people with high organizational skills.

A cluttered apartment, or just having random crap in various places throughout your home, is stressful.

Clutter makes it hard to find what you’re looking for and even harder to stay focused when working from home.

I’ve spent hours rearranging things as a way of procrastinating getting work done at home.

When you cut the clutter, you cut the distractions and thus, cut the excuses and justifications you’ve been feeding yourself for postponing your task at hand. 

The worst part about clutter is that it so easily builds on itself.

clutter

A junk drawer, if not consistently cleansed, easily turns into a junk closet filled with useless items.

While it’s easy to attach sentimental value to physical items, doing so is a disservice to ourselves. 

Instead, throw away the crap and hold on to the memory.

Write the memory down in a journal! One journal could hold thousands of memories and save you a lot more room for stuff you actually do need and use on a regular basis.

I speak from experience when I say that clearing the clutter can be transformational.

I felt physically lighter this past weekend after throwing out 7 garbage bags of crap and donating 5 bags of clothes.

When you clear the clutter, you make more room for creativity and end up feeling lighter and freer.

Have you recently done a clutter cleanse? How was your experience?

Comment below!

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Photo Credit: SinDesign 

11 Comments

  • Joel says:

    While I initially thought I didn’t mind the clutter, You couldn’t be more spot-on here. I couldn’t believe how much stuff we had acquired in the past three years. After doing our cleaning I feel like we have accomplished something big because we freed up plenty of new space for new things in our lives and apartment but the organization brought to the apartment by cleaning the clutter has made a disorganized person feel like an organizing champion!! This was huge and cathartic.

    P.S. Readers: Julia is the organizing champion, I am not but I did contribute.

  • dray0308 says:

    Reblogged this on Dream Big, Dream Often and commented:
    I say it now and I will say it forever…a cluttered house equals a cluttered mind! Change your thinking, change your life!

  • +2 says:

    My recent move was so freeing, in the sense that I got rid of garbage can after garbage can full of “stuff” that I’d been hanging onto – for decades! I had a nice moment thinking of the memory, and then chucked it. Haven’t missed any of the items I threw out since. Probably couldn’t even tell you what half of them were! Plus, it meant a lot less stuff to move into the new house. So yes, I agree. Clearing the clutter, for a variety of reasons, is a good thing.

  • I was so busy in my work life, I forgot my home life one day I woke up! I was in distress and the only way was to give away everything! Then I was left with essentials it worked! Thanks for the reminder! Peaceful Warrior.

  • Major decluttering in progress at my apartment. 🙂 Couldn’t agree more with your article. It’s like cleaning psychic and physical space simultaneously.

  • Reblogged this on Nikki S – Thechocolatewanderingstar and commented:
    Love this blog and I’m an avid believer in de-cluttering many areas of life.

  • A very important thing to do but also of paramount importance is to de-clutter the mind from the continuous floods of information, misinformation, hype, silly ideas, celebrities tosh, advertisements and so on with which we are inundated everyday.

  • saymber says:

    As I lose sentimental attachment to things I get rid of them or pass them on. Recently I boxed up a bunch of things that I’m losing attachment to and have a suspense date on the box – if it’s not opened within a year — GONE! Great topic.

  • thejuicingRD says:

    My boyfriend and I are in the process of downsizing to a small apartment. Most people our age think about buying a bigger houses and therefore end up accumulating more stuff. I’m looking forward to de-cluttering and donating the items we don’t need. My thoughts are: less stuff, more love! 🙂

  • Jo says:

    I’m so ready to toss the boxes of sheet music we acquired over the decades. I might need to sneak it into the shredder so somebody else doesn’t find out. Jo @ Let’s Face the Music

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