Minimalism was originally a Japanese concept. It has since spread to several countries around the world. Considering the problems people face when their home is crowded with items, this makes sense.
Do you have thousands of items in your home? If so, you’re likely experiencing a lot of problems. You may struggle to find places for everything, for instance.
Learning how to live with less can free you from these problems. Read on to learn about some ways you can declutter and start a minimalist lifestyle.
What Is Decluttering?
The term “decluttering” first caught on around the mid-20th century. These days, it’s popular because it’s an important step one must take to become a contemporary minimalist person.
Definition
So what does it mean? The act of “decluttering” involves removing unnecessary things from your home. The term can also apply to organizing and streamlining your life.
Similar Terms
Some people may use the term “downsizing”. This term is pretty much the same as decluttering. The difference is that people who downsize are doing so to move into a smaller home.
People may also use terms like purge, simplify, and dejunk to refer to the decluttering process.
Reasons You Should Live With Less
Living with less isn’t always the best idea. For example, do you have a large collection of items that bring you joy (such as books, figurines, etc.)? If so, organizing these items may be your best bet.
However, there are still plenty of situations where you must declutter your home. You should declutter if you:
Are Moving
Moving a huge amount of items can be very expensive to do. The total cost will be even more expensive for you if you decide to move to another country with packers and movers. On top of that, you may be moving to a smaller space that won’t hold all of your possessions well.
If you’re dealing with a situation like this, you should purge all the items you can from your home. You won’t spend as much money moving and the process will be more convenient.
Keep Hurting Yourself
Are you constantly tripping over your possessions? Are things constantly falling off your shelves and hitting you? Or maybe you can’t easily clean and the dust is killing your lungs.
Yes, having a lot of clutter in your home can be damaging to your health. If you want to injure yourself less, simplifying your home will help.
Feel Mentally Bad
Having a lot of clutter in your home can also cause you a lot of stress. It can send your mind into overdrive and reduce your energy. In addition, it can affect how well your mind focuses on the tasks that it should.
Getting rid of a lot of the unnecessary items in your home can help you keep it clean and organized. When your home is like this, you shouldn’t feel as stressed and distracted.
Struggle to Find Things
Even if your home is organized, it can be harder to find items in your home when there are a lot of other items overwhelming your sight. You can end up wasting a lot of time trying to find certain items. Decluttering can save you from this.
Steps For Decluttering
By now, you should feel convinced to make an effort to live with less. However, you probably don’t know how to do this. If you want some great decluttering methods, look at the ones below:
Use Piles
It can be difficult to constantly move items directly into the trash if your item-gathering space is quite a few feet away from the trashcan and/or recycling. If you keep moving back and forth between this space and the cans, you can end up losing energy and motivation.
Instead, consider putting the items you’re donating into different “piles”. One can be for “trash”, another can be for “donations”, and so on. If you’d rather not put items on the ground, consider using boxes.
Start With What You Use Less
Items that you somewhat use can be hard to get rid of. You can deliberate whether or not you need these items until you lose all motivation to declutter. This is why you need to start decluttering by getting rid of items you don’t use anymore.
You should be able to find plenty of these items in storage spaces. Check your closet, attic, basement, etc. By the time you get to the more important stuff, you should have enough motivation and experience to part with them.
Avoid Nostalgic Distractions
Happening upon emotional items is just unavoidable. When you come across these items, you may end up falling down a memory hole. This will distract you and you may make a lot less progress than you want.
Know that this can happen and prepare yourself for it. Try to picture yourself going down memory rabbit holes and coming out of them a few times. This can help you fight against these distractions.
Motivate Yourself
It can be very difficult to get rid of items that have great emotional significance to you. The movements involved in decluttering can also feel exhausting. So make sure not to be so hard on yourself and keep reminding yourself of why you’re doing this.
Schedule Some Time
Don’t forget to put some time to declutter on your weekly schedule. You don’t have to dedicate too much time to decluttering. A few hours a week should be enough.
Learn About Cleaning and Decluttering Products
Now that you know how to live with less, you should soon feel a lot less stressed and waste a lot less time. Just make sure to follow the methods above when you’re decluttering your space.
Do you want to learn more about some products that can help you clean and declutter your home? If so, consider looking at some of the product articles on our site. We talk about home products as well as CBD products, Bitcoin products, and so much more.
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