Making Room For You

What’s decluttering your home got to do with personal development you might well be wondering? Actually, quite a lot! In the last post I asked you to consider some questions around whether you are living the life you want. Our personal space, home and surroundings can have quite a significant impact on us and in order to live well we often need to think about making room.

Making room is often about decluttering. You may have a house full of stuff and if you look at those belongings honestly, you may realize that they don’t serve you. They don’t make you happy. They don’t solve any problems and they may actually create problems for you. Clutter is actually stressful, so let’s talk about how you can begin to get rid of what’s getting in your way.

Start Slowly

It’s tempting to just rent a dumpster and start getting rid of your stuff. And if that’s really what you want to do, okay. However, a better approach is to systematically go through your home room by room. Take time to consider whether something supports you or whether it’s time to get rid of it. The reason to start slowly is that often when people purge their home in a weekend, they get rid of things that they later need to replace. That’s a waste of your time and money.

Room by Room

Go through your home room by room. If you’re feeling ambitious then start in your most cluttered room. It might be your kitchen or your bedroom.

The Four Pile Approach

Many organization experts recommend making four piles. They are: Keep, Donate, Toss, and Sell. The items you keep are the items that you love, that support you to live your perfect life, and that you know you’ll be using and loving years from now.

Donate items that are in good condition. Toss the broken stuff and the stuff that you know people won’t really want. Sell the items that you can get good money for. Consider holding a yard sale or listing the items on an auction site.

The 10-10-10 Approach

Another approach is to try to donate, sell, and toss ten items each week. Or you can strive to get rid of one thing each day. The approach you take depends largely on your current clutter and your needs.

Create Systems

Once you’ve decluttered, it’s important to make sure that there is an organized space for everything that remains. This means making sure your closets, pantry, and other storage areas are organized and that they support you.

You might wonder why decluttering is so important. Essentially, it gives you a clean slate. It allows you to get rid of the things that are not supporting you to live your best life and it forces you to truly prioritize on the things that you want and need in your life. In the next post we’ll take a look at setting goals so that you’re able to live better with what you have.

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