The first day of Spring is just around the corner. And, with the start of the new season, you will start to see spring cleaning advertisements in the home magazines and organizing products appear on the shelves of local department stores. This is no coincidence that you are prompted to declutter your home and do a thorough cleaning at this time of year.
Spring cleaning has multiple historical roots dating back to ancient times. From the Persian new year (Nowruz) to the Jewish Passover or Catholic Lent (and Clean Week), there is a long, storied history of societies taking the change in temperatures as a time to cleanse.
More importantly in modern times, though, beyond our ability to clean and declutter our homes any time of year, is that doing so is good for our mental health. In this article, I will discuss why it’s important to declutter your home, decluttering strategies, where to send your clutter, and further resources for managing clutter.
Why Declutter Your Home?
If we consider the advertising industry again, a great amount of stress and anxiety comes from our society’s obsession with consumerism and materialism. Both in moderation are good and healthy for you and society. But, the way in which they make you feel bad are plentiful, even if not writ large, and that only gets exacerbated the more you own and the more you spend.
If you bought a pair of running shoes, but failed to before a thrice-a-year marathon runner, you feel bad about not running. Worse yet, you are loathe to rid yourself of those running shoes because it admits defeat on an even deeper level. Marketers, one. You, zero.
To declutter your home and support your wellbeing, you need to wrest control back from some of society’s less savory aspects. And, the benefits start to stack up once you consider all the ways decluttering your home can help, and your family, thrive.
By decluttering your home, you can:
- make some money selling things you no longer need/want. Plus, you will buy less things after you declutter;
- An organized space is inherently de-stressing, so you’ll experience less stress and anxiety at home;
- increase productivity around your home;
- find things more easily because items will now have “homes” where they always go back to; and,
- reduce allergens in your home, which means you and potentially more vulnerable members in your family (humans and pets) will get sick less often.
A 2011 study in the Journal of Neuroscience found that clutter limits the brain’s attention capabilities and the brain’s processing efficiency, while UCLA’s Center on Everyday Lives of Families has published a book, Life at Home in the 21st Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors, detailing the effects on the wellbeing of cluttered homes. Below is some video from UCLA discussing its central findings.
Declutter Your Home, a Tale of Two Opposing Strategies
So, if decluttering your home is good, then knowing how to do it is better. Enter two opposing views on decluttering strategies from great minds in the arena of maintaining a clutter-free home.
In one corner is Dana K. White, blogger and podcaster at A Slob Comes Clean, as well as author of Decluttering at the Speed of Life. White presents a view of decluttering that can be best summed up as: declutter a little bit in whatever time you have. You can always be decluttering to keep up the with the rising tide of stuff that washes in and out of your home. In Decluttering at the Speed of Life, she provides you with a room-by-room ability to assess, divide and conquer, then tackle clutter piecemeal. For some people, this is highly practical, less stressful, and if nothing else, you can listen to her entertaining podcast episodes while you get your house in order.
And, in the other corner is Marie Kondo, creator of the KonMari method, tidying consultant and author of her two The New York Times best-selling books, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and Spark Joy. Kondo believes in a specific, five-step process to decluttering once and for all:
- Ask yourself, why do you want to tidy up your home?
- Commit to tidying up your home in one, complete event.
- Discard by category—not room by room, or little-by-little, but in order clothing, books, paper, miscellany and then sentimental items, choosing only your items that need to be discarded and throw them away. No, don’t donate, give them away or otherwise. She says you must trash them.
- Treat your possessions that you are discarding with dignity. Thank each one for serving its purpose to you before you throw it away.
- Now, again by the same categories, ask yourself does this item spark joy for me?
- If the answer is no, to any item, it also gets discarded (with the same gratitude ritual).
- If it’s yes, then all items are given a home together with its own kind. That’s where everything goes anytime when they’re not in use.
Declutter Your Home, and Then Where Does the Clutter Go?
And, while Marie Kondo doesn’t advocate anything other than throwing away your clutter, as they say, “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure,” so I’ll offer more resources than simply your garbage can.
Here are some places you can send things once they’ve outlived their usefulness to you:
- Local waste collection, recycling centers — they are often happy to take things that might be too bulky to be picked up by your everyday garbage collection workers.
- 1-800-Got-Junk — these folks will show up with a truck and haul away items that your local city/county won’t take away (minus hazardous materials).
- Library donations — if you have books, periodicals and the like, think about donating them to your local (community or school) library.
- Goodwill — clothes and other odds-and-ends are easily given away to Goodwill to sell for charity.
- Food bank / Homeless shelter — you would be surprised at what food stuffs you find in your pantry or cabinets, that can go to good use at these community assistance centers.
- Local nonprofits — they might want your excess furniture (and it’s tax deductible, possibly).
- Craigslist, Freecycle, eBay, LetGo, and many more apps — if you have something of value you want to sell, or would like to go to a loving new home, check out the plethora of online services and mobile apps out there.
These resources can let you release those items that don’t “spark joy” and perhaps will help others with a bit of joy in their lives.
In Need Professional Declutter Help to Declutter Your Home
Sometimes you need some help beyond your physical or emotional abilities to deal with clutter in your home. Perhaps you have mom or dad’s belongings hanging around the attic long after their passing. You may have a basement or garage filled with newspapers you were hoping to decoupage your retirement away until you found a new love. Well, did you know there are professional dedicated to help you declutter? Find a Certified Professional Organizer at the National Association Professional Organizers’ website and they will help you tackle the clutter with aplomb.
If you feel like your home clutter issues go beyond the normative levels (Levels III, IV and V on the Clutter-Hoarding Scale) and you need specialized professional assistance, there is the Institute for Challenging Disorganization. You can find decluttering specialists who can help you with the issues that have caused your home clutter to get out of hand. Don’t feel like you have to tackle clutter on your own.
Have you ever struggled with clutter? How did you tackle the project of decluttering your home? Did you feel better afterward? Let us know about your experiences in the comments.