Don’t let clutter hold you back from the life you deserve. It’s time to let go of what’s no longer serving you
If you feel like you should be thoroughly decluttered and reorganised by now, especially after all that time spent at home during the pandemic, you’re not alone.
It seemed as if everyone on Instagram was using lockdowns to clear out and reorganise their houses, minds and lives so they could re-emerge like a butterfly from a minimalist chrysalis, but that was probably a myth, according to American psychology professor Joseph Ferrari. He says anxiety about finances or health was more likely to stop us from tackling tasks that might seem overwhelming or stressful, rather than motivate us.
The good news is that, with life beginning to feel more normal, it’s now a far better time to begin new habits. Decluttering can save you time and money, help maintain your sanity and emotional wellbeing, and make you feel in control.
With that in mind, here are five new rules about decluttering for the post-Kondo era, and 10 clever storage hacks that can help you keep your home (and mind) in order.
Good idea
Decluttering promotes relaxation, stimulates creativity and improves productivity.
1 It’s okay not to Kondo
Japanese “organising consultant” Marie Kondo has been the big name in decluttering (although we all exhaled when she recently said she doesn’t tidy every day now), but if you don’t feel the joy in her feel-the-joy-or-slash-and-burn approach, you might want to go shopping for another guru. There’s the somewhat morbid Swedish death-cleaning craze, where you sort your stuff as if you’re leaving as little mess as possible for your family to mop up after you’re gone. There’s the drawer-by-drawer method, where you commit to tidying just one small nook each day, creating a lifelong habit. Choose what works for you.
It does help to have a goal in mind and to understand that decluttering isn’t a one-off event but a permanent change of mindset and habit.
2 A (labelled) place for everything
Former US President Barack Obama subscribes to the theory of “decision fatigue” – that our decision-making processes degrade over a day if we have to make choices about too many minor things. For this reason, he always wore the same style of suit, ate whatever was put in front of him, and never went shopping. In our homes, part of the reason we end up with mess is that by the end of the day we no longer have the mental energy to make a call about where that gismo should go. If you make those decisions in advance by having clearly named places for all of that day-to-day detritus, from phone chargers to school notices, you’ll save yourself and everyone else in your household from making all those surprisingly wearying day-to-day choices.
3 Allow yourself one guilty spot
As much as we like to imagine ourselves never again breaking the rules, post-declutter, the reality is that we inevitably will, and from one slip, it’s easy for our clutter to rebuild itself like the Terminator reassembling from a puddle. Allowing yourself one junk drawer or sorting box, into which you can dump stuff you don’t have the bandwidth to deal with in the moment, can take away the anxiety without jeopardising your newly decluttered system. The rule here, though – you are allowed only one finite space, and when it fills up, you need to properly sort all that stuff.
4 Use less stuff more often
How many items do you have that serve the same purpose? If you’re a family of four, do you really need 30 coffee mugs, three staplers and 12 phone chargers? If you have everyday items that have sat unused at the back of your crockery shelf for years, you probably don’t need them. Towels and bed linen can be washed and dried in a day, so why have more than a couple of bath towels or sheet sets per person, plus a few for guests? Think about how you stay at a motel and they have one cup, plate and glass per person, and you just wash them after each use. You don’t need to go to that extreme, of course, but think about paring back so you have less stuff that you value more and cycle through more often.
5 Pack for your life
If you have a small wardrobe, don’t treat it as a storage facility, as you might a large one. It should contain only seasonal items on high rotation. If you can’t figure out what to keep in your wardrobe and what to store under the bed or give away, imagine that you’re packing for the fortnight ahead – work clothes, workout gear, loungewear, pyjamas, party outfits. Separate out as many clothes as you need for your “trip”. That’s what stays in your wardrobe. This will force you to pick only your most loved and most practical seasonally appropriate clothing. And do you need more than that?
Words by: Bronwyn Sell
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