I've lived most of my life in spaces that were neatly cluttered, meaning I was
really good at organizing a lot of stuff. Every closet was full. The space under
my bed was everything but empty. I had decor stack in every corner of every
room. All of my dresser drawers required me to stuff and push everything in them
down just to get it closed. It was a mess. An organized mess, but see the problem I
ran into was I was constantly rearranging or switching out decorations
in order to make the space feel less overwhelming but no matter what I did or
how I displayed it I still had a cluttered space. Now if you fast forward
to today almost every room in this space has given me space to breathe and the
weights of my once then clutter is no longer crushing me. However its taken
some adjusting and habit building in order to maintain a clutter free space.
Here are eight habits for a clutter free home that even I continue to develop.
Number one is the habit of visualizing and believing that you can live life in
a cluttered free space. See if you don't believe that you can own less,
clear space and manage those two things consistently then the rest of your
journey is already dead. Feeling inspired by others and the images you see online
is only part of the motivation because if you don't have that vision and that
belief for your own life. What's going to happen is you're going to declutter your
space just fine, but then a week later you'll be back to square one until the
next image or the next video comes along to inspire you for the next week. So you
have to take that inspiration that want that desire for change in your life and
turn it into a long-term vision. Only that will keep you motivated.
Number two is live within your means. Now this isn't a new idea and I'm sure
you've heard it before. It's commonly used in reference to money in lifestyle
so don't spend what you don't have or only consume what you can afford right.
However I want to take this idea and I want to apply it to your home or your
space meaning that your space or your home should dictate or at least help
guide how much stuff you own not the other way around. So instead of wishing
you had a bigger space or more closet space, try cutting down the things you do
own to fit within the space you have available.
Number three is give everything you own a home. An easy way to keep your space
clutter free is to guarantee that everything you own has a home. When
things are left out consistently without a home something weird happens where you
start to grow comfortable with things just being where they are versus in
their proper home right and that comfort then leads to more comfort around things
just being everywhere. Number four is build a consistent cleaning routine. Just
like the previous point I mentioned cleaning your space consistently is
another easy way to guarantee a clutter-free home and what's interesting
about this is when your space feels clean and smells clean you're more
likely to keep it that way. Number five is to declutter often and do it as you
live. See it's good sometimes to have those mass decluttering moments when you
go through a bulk of items at one time and then you're done with it but
sometimes it's not always practical and it can make you feel overwhelmed and
discouraged just depending on how much stuff you may have. So another way to
approach decluttering alongside other tactics you may use is to do it as you
live. So as you go through your normal life and your daily routines place items
into a donation bag or box as you come across them naturally. Doing this
consistently will help cut back on the clutter you have in your home in between
those all in decluttering moments that you have from time to time.
Number six is managing all paperwork, bills, mail, birthday cards, coupons, etc.
See making it a habit to deal with these paper items the moments they touch our
hands is essential in order to manage this type of clutter in our lives. So
whether it's going paperless where you can or developing a better filing and
organizing system or just discarding the things that you don't need the moment
you receive them. Either way it's important to do this not only to
maintain a clutter free home but also so you can stay organized and better manage
the things that are important that you can't really forget about. Number
seven is limit the knickknacks you find on a sales rack. Okay what does this mean.
Here's a quick story for you. A weird thing that I used to do is I would
always buy table top picture frames right. So vintage frames, modern frames
and everything in between. I just like the way they look and I always had the
intentions of filling them with my writings
but in reality I never did and before I knew it I had a living room full of
empty picture frames on display. See the point of me sharing this with you is so
that you can see that I understand the temptations of buying knickknacks for
the sake of buying them because I did it but the moment I broke that habit all of
the clutter in my space cleared up significantly. So if you have a very
similar habit of buying things for sake of buying them, I really want to
encourage you to break that habit so you don't find yourself in a constant circle
of buying things and then decluttering those same things over and over again.
And I actually have a few videos on my channel about breaking habits but also
stopping impulse buying so definitely consider checking those out but if
you're new here also consider joining this community by tapping that subscribe
button down below and also tapping the bell so you're notify every time I drop a new
video. Number eight is slow the accumulation of possessions. In other
words stop all access at the door and think for a second before welcoming them
into your space. See living means consuming and there's no real way to get
around that at all, we we have to consume right. However we do have control over
how much we consume and when we choose to do so and in order to maintain that
control effectively, we have to be willing to make a shift in our mindset
by A) thinking differently and B) asking the right questions that are going to
encourage a different thought process. Questions like: "do I really need this?" or
"do I have extra time to manage this?" or my favorite is "does this really add
value to my life or is it just something that I perceive it to be valuable in the
moment?" See at the end of the day you just have to learn how to slow down, to be
conscious, to be intentional and to always stay true to you, regardless. I'll see
the next one. Peace!