Being organized and maintaining a tidy lifestyle is often the key to a success and efficiency; however, achieving organization is easier said than done. Finding time to sort through and get rid of unnecessary belongings is hard, but in the long run, prioritizing organization will benefit future endeavors of productivity. Once the process begins, the decluttering practically does itself, as it becomes easier and more satisfying to throw out things that once may have held a sentimental or practical value. Visualizing what kind of cleanliness and order is desired helps to put the parameters of organization into perspective, which helps to initiate the decluttering process.
The first step to decluttering is identifying the problem areas that are seemingly always disorganized. A good place to start is assessing the value or use of the item and determining whether or not life will go on without the item. Surprisingly, most of the stuff I cleansed myself of had been obsolete to me since high school. For me, the biggest problem was the clutter in my closet. I assessed the belongings I had and ended up donating a majority of my clothes that I either hadn’t worn in years, didn’t fit or I had long since grown out of. Once I eliminated the clutter in my closet, I had more storage space and I felt less overwhelmed by mess when putting my laundry away later in the week.
Organizing clutter into piles specified for donation, trash and storage helps to quickly decide the value of the items and designate them to their piles. Start with areas that are lived in the most that often have miscellaneous items gathered around in strange places so as to keep them out of the way. Bedrooms and living rooms harbor the most useless items that infiltrate life but provide more inconvenience than use. Disposing of trash and storing donation items in a place separate from the decluttering process is essential to definitively eliminating clutter.
Not unlike any other cleaning routine, decluttering must be maintained in order for it to be effective. The decluttering process doesn’t happen overnight, so don’t aim to live a fully clutter-free life immediately. Because it can be exhausting sorting through discarded and misplaced belongings, focusing on decluttering smaller areas will prevent the overwhelming stress that comes with eradicating the home of unnecessary items. Even designating certain items to be thrown out or donated for a couple minutes every day will consistently reduce the accumulation of mess.
While the effort and time dedicated to organizing clutter can be daunting, the feeling of maintaining a minimalistic lifestyle that relies on necessity rather than sentiment and ownership. Eliminating the stress and clutter that things create is detrimental to productivity and efficiency in the home, and keeping this in mind will help accelerate the organization process.
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