Let’s discuss what is generally unwanted yet ubiquitous in most everyone’s home and life: clutter! It’s so easy to let clutter accumulate around us, especially when we are busy and have little time to spare. However, it is possible to get rid of clutter if we make a regular effort. Taking some steps to assess each area of your house and make a change to discourage clutter will both look much better and feel more inviting.
Physical Clutter
There are two types of clutter. The most obvious is physical clutter, which we can see and which consists of the usual offenders: junk mail, unopened bills and packages, books, dirty dishes, dirty or clirty clothes, and generally anything lying around that isn’t in an orderly and intentional place. Clutter typically accumulates when we acquire something to which we haven’t had time to give attention, when we know that we will need or use it soon but have to wait until a later time so we keep it out as a reminder, when we aren’t sure what to do with it, or when we are simply too tired to put forth the mental energy to deal with it at the end of a workday.
Every Object Needs an Intentional and Orderly Place
I loosely define clutter as something that is not in an orderly and intentional place. An intentional place is a place where you would like to keep something as a fixture in your home. For example, I keep my sunglasses in an old candle holder on top of the shoe rack in the entryway. I intentionally keep my sunglasses there so that I know where to find them when I go outside.
An orderly place is a place where something looks neat and orderly. I use the pretty old candle holder to contain my sunglasses because I decided that looks more orderly than laying them directly on the shoe rack where they get bumped around. Plus, it takes up less space since it allows me to store them vertically.
If, for example, you purposely keep all of your shoes in a haphazard pile in the corner of a room, you may not consider your shoes to be clutter since the corner is your chosen permanent spot for them. However, since the pile may look quite messy, we could call it clutter based on its appearance. If you were to instead line up your shoes in pairs on the floor or on a shoe rack, that would look less cluttered since that would be an intentional space and one where they are arranged neatly.
Mental Clutter
The second and less obvious type of clutter is mental clutter. We could also call this emotional clutter or energetic clutter. Mental clutter is, of course, unseen, but it is subtly (or not so subtly) felt. Mental clutter can occur from experiences such as information overload or an accumulation of unprocessed emotions. Information overload is common in our modern society and deals with an unprecedented amount of mental stimuli. Unprocessed emotions are common in anyone who hasn’t regularly or effectively dealt with past or recurring emotional traumas or challenges. Tackling physical clutter seems straightforward, but how do we get rid of clutter in our head? The most common method people use to address their mental clutter is by meditating to clear the mind. As with physical clutter, it is very easy for mental clutter to accumulate if left unchecked.
Space improvement is about revitalizing the physical space around you as well as the energetic space within you. Both have an effect on your mental health. Living or spending time in an area filled with physical clutter can be mentally draining and stressful. Mental clutter can, of course, also be draining and stressful. Clearing both types of spaces will create more room for light and expansion. Meditating to clear mental clutter is especially helpful for growth and wellbeing.
Tips to Get Rid of Clutter
If you have your own living and/or working space, keep in mind these handy tips to get rid of clutter and create your optimal atmosphere!
1. Address Your Stuff
Stuff often comes in faster than we can sort through it. If you cannot open a package, take out its contents and place them wherever they need to go, and then dispose of (or recycle/store) the packaging materials, you may want to establish a temporary holding area for unsightly parcels and the like. This may be a large cabinet, an area in the garage if you have one and regularly use it, or a specifically designed ‘working’ area in your home for which the sole purpose is to unpack mail, boxes, and shopping bags. With the right furniture or design tricks, you can create a space that looks both tidy and functional for just that purpose. Perhaps you’ll cordon off a portion of the kitchen counter, or find a used end table and splash some color or lights around to make it more commanding.
2. Address Your Furniture
Evaluate your furniture situation. Is there any item of furniture that is neither functional nor attractive enough to make you happy when you look at it (i.e. serves no purpose)? If so, bin it (or re-home it if at all possible). Furniture items are huge space-users and so if there is anything that you really don’t want or need, don’t let it take up space in your home without it paying its own rent any longer!
3. Allow Empty Space
For every piece of furniture or object in your home or workspace, allow nearly an equal amount of empty space. Crowding too many pieces of furniture will clutter your floor space and feel cramped and busy. Additionally, furniture with space underneath, such as tables and couches perched on legs, are more visually appealing since the openness underneath looks both neater and more expansive. Let air abound and allow the free movement of energy. You’ve heard it said, ‘less is more’. This is true: less is more, and that is why it’s so important to get rid of clutter. With less visual distraction, a few simple statement pieces have much more purpose, more meaning, and more richness than they could ever have amidst a sea of decorative clutter.
4. Address Your Keepsakes
You may own decorative items that no longer suit your design palate. Maybe they’re things you displayed ten years ago but which you are now tired of looking at. Yet, they are nostalgic relics from another country or from a special time. You need not re-home these, but neither need you display them. You can keep keepsakes that you truly love but simply don’t feel like awkwardly including amidst your current decor. Simply store them in a box somewhere, and reevaluate whether you want to continue to keep them during your next deep clean. Perhaps, at some later stage in your life, you will find the desire and place to again display them. Or, perhaps then you will re-home them. For now, it’s okay just to store them as special hidden keepsakes so long as you have a reasonable amount of storage space.
Get Rid of Clutter: Chipping Away Day by Day Makes a Difference!
Keeping physical clutter at bay can feel like constantly swatting at flies. You really have to keep on it (and the same is true for mental clutter, which is why five minutes of daily meditation is so beneficial). But it is much easier to put forth the effort to get rid of clutter for a minute or two each day, or fifteen minutes each week, than it is to let it accumulate and then face a mountain of it at the end of the year. If you have a mountain of clutter to deal with now, it may take some time to chip away. Cheer up: know that you are in good company, and just take one day at a time! Eventually, you will notice the amount lessening until you can one day bask in space and order.