Now, more than ever, we’re appreciating the comforts of home. After all, a happy home is a healthy home and vice versa. But if your home is a cluttered and disorganized mess, it’s going to be neither healthy nor happy.
Why It Matters
The simple fact is that decluttering and organizing are about far more than making your house look pretty for guests. It’s about more than creating a nice backdrop for your next Zoom call. The state of your house directly connects to the state of your physical and mental health.
Clutter not only significantly increases your stress, but it also makes it harder to clean your home. This means your clutter is providing more surfaces on which viruses and bacteria can accumulate.
Not only does decluttering help give you peace of mind and strength in body, it’s also going to save you both time and money. Studies show that people spend an average of 55 minutes every day looking for lost items in the home — that’s more than one whole year of your life spent rifling through your clutter!
Clutter is also costly because you’re spending untold sums buying duplicate items to replace the things you’ve lost. And let’s not forget all those late fees and penalties that you’ve faced because you couldn’t locate your bill.
What to Do
The first and perhaps most important step in decluttering and organizing your home is to make a plan. Do an initial pass of each room to get a sense of the situation of the entire house. Then sit down and create a strategy.
Define a specific space for everything in your home, as well as a small “catch-all” space for items that can’t be categorized — but note the word “small” here. Your decluttering project won’t work if your whole house becomes a catch-all!
Then, make a plan for what you will do with your discarded items, including a strict schedule for when you’re going to do it. Will you donate, sell, or trash your items? Where will you take them and when, exactly? Be specific and stick to the plan.
After that, have a strategy for maintaining your new clutter-free and gloriously well-organized home. Set aside at least one day each week for tidying and taking care of the clutter before it can accumulate.
And make sure you’re stemming the tide of accumulation. Resist the urge to fill up your space again. If you’re one of the estimated 270 million people who shops by PC, smartphone, or mobile device, set limits on your online browsing and confine your purchases only to those items you truly need.
The Takeaway
An organized home is a happy and healthy home. It’s not about aesthetics. It has nothing to do with keeping up with the Joneses or prepping the perfect selfie. It’s about creating a living environment that is comfortable, comforting, clean, and convenient. It’s about taking havoc and transforming it into a haven.
Author Bio: Jori Hamilton is an experienced writer residing in the Northwestern U.S. She covers a wide range of subjects but takes a particular interest in covering topics related to home maintenance, smart home tech, and eco-living. To learn more about Jori, you can follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn.
