Set reasonable goals based on your available time and stamina.
You may want to go room by room or focus on a category like coats or shoes, but avoid changing course midstream before you’ve finished the task you started. Now to do the same with the hundreds of work-related books I’ll never open again! Tips to tackle declutteringĮstablish a plan.
UNCLUTTER YOU MIND MEME PROFESSIONAL
When I realized it was time to part with decades-old professional files, I enlisted the aid of a helper, instructing them not to let me see anything that was being discarded from my drawers. I also live on a block with lots of pedestrian traffic and if I put giveaways - from shampoos and shoes to pots and picture frames - in front of the house, they tend to disappear within hours. Still, I routinely bite the bullet and donate to charities that collect clothing and household items in my neighborhood. And I have a quasi-irrational fear that as soon as I dispose of something, I will find I need it. If it’s something I long treasured, like the silverware and china my husband and I bought with our wedding gifts 46 years ago, I want to give them to someone I know will appreciate and use them. I have many reasons for not parting with a long-unused item. “What if they come over one day and discover it’s gone?” is a common rationale. Out of guilt or sentiment, some find it hard to part with useless gifts from people they love or admire. Some also feel compelled to hold on to the past, like a friend who keeps the programs of every event he’s attended over the last six decades. Scott Bea, a clinical psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic, has noted that our consumer society drives many people to collect stuff they don’t need. When feeling low, I’m not above indulging in retail therapy, often buying yet another bathing suit or cozy fleece to add to my extensive collection. I’d like my family to have better things to fret or chuckle over when I die. Costly truckloads of clutter had to be carted away. When my friend Michael and his brothers cleaned out their 92-year-old mother’s house in Florida after she died, among the many multiples they found were eight identical jars of mustard, five dozen cans of pineapple chunks, 72 rolls of paper towels, 11 walkers and four wheelchairs. The burden of clutter doesn’t even end when we die. Lawrence University found that a cluttered bedroom goes hand in hand with a poor night’s sleep. It saps time and energy and diminishes productivity. In addition, clutter is distracting, stealing attention from worthy thoughts and tasks. When my friend of 61 years, who can’t seem to dispose of anything, had complications from a head injury that kept him in the hospital for many weeks, his wife felt compelled to clear their apartment of untold objects lying about before his return home. Not to mention risking a fall over objects left where they don’t belong. Among them are the chronic and repeated stresses that can arise, for example while searching frantically through stacks of miscellany for an important paper or racing to clear piles of junk before visitors arrive. People like me, who fill storage areas as long as the living spaces remain orderly, do not rise to the seriousness of being a hoarder, which is considered its own psychiatric diagnosis.
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