Did you know that living in a tidy home is good for your mental health? It means you’re less stressed and uptight, you can relax more easily, and you’re generally happier. It’s also good for your physical health; when your home is cluttered and messy, it’s harder to clean it, and when you can’t clean it, you might develop conditions from bacteria, dust, germs, and other problems. So it makes sense that you would want to declutter your home and then keep it as tidy as you can. With that in mind, here are some ways you can do it that make it less of a chore and much easier to handle.
Store It
One of the problems that decluttering can cause is that you might not like the idea of doing it because, by its very nature, decluttering means you have to throw things out. Or perhaps you’ll give them away or even sell them. The point is, you’ll have to get rid of stuff if you want your home to be neater and healthier. This is hard to do, especially if you like to collect things or everything has some kind of sentimental value.
In that case, why not store it instead? If you have a garage, you can box everything up and keep it safe and secure in there; install roller doors to make it easier to access if you need to, but protected from burglars at the same time. If you don’t have a garage, you could look at self-storage options. Decluttering doesn’t mean you have to destroy anything; it just means it should no longer be in your home.
Fill One Garbage Bag
Another way to challenge yourself to declutter and do it every day if you can is to take a garbage bag and time yourself filling it. How quickly can you create an entire bag’s worth of things to sell, give to charity, store, or take to the dump if you really have to? The more you do this, the quicker you’ll get, and not only will it become a much easier thing to do, but you can enjoy beating your personal best every day.
Challenging yourself is a good thing in general, and it’s something you should try to do more often as it’s good for your brain’s health. If you can declutter at the same time, that’s definitely a bonus.
Take 5
You can declutter your home just by taking five minutes a day (or multiple five minutes throughout the day if you want to). When you work in such a short burst of activity, knowing there is an endpoint – set a timer to make the deadline event more urgent – you’ll get a lot more done. If you just say that you’ll declutter today and have many hours to accomplish the task, it will seem more difficult, and you might not get as much done.
It’s impressive how much you can do in just five minutes; an entire chest of drawers, a closet, perhaps a bookshelf, etc. Take five minutes each day, and soon enough, your home will be tidy and clean.
