Be Clutter Free This Year
And here we are again — the beginning of a new year.
If you have been following some of my advice in this blog space, then many areas of your house have been streamlined, either in preparation for a downsize or just so you can live more comfortably in your space.
The beginning of a new year is a great time to assess your living areas, including your kitchen. Look around — has some of that clutter snuck back up on you?
It is just so easy for this to happen — please don’t think ANYONE is immune, including me.
Why do we let the clutter build up, and what should we do about it?
Keeping things we like around us is comforting, even if we have way, way too much of it. Cozy throw blankets. Aromatic candles. Well-loved books. Kitchen gadgets. These are the things that soothe us. But when the sheer amount of our loved items gets out of control and starts living in piles, the comfort becomes stress.
And then there are all those holiday gifts. Ones where the gift giver was so spot on, that it was something you just bought for yourself. Or ones where you might think that the gift giver never actually met you before!
We discussed the boxes of holiday decor that never make the cut. Resist the urge to pack it away again. Make an appointment right now for a local charity — like the Vietnam Vets — to come and retrieve these and other things you can part with. Just chose a date from their interactive calendar and set the stuff out early that morning. They will even leave you a receipt for tax purposes.
Pat yourself on the back for using all the at-home time during the pandemic to attack those junk drawers, scary closets, and seemingly bottomless attic and basement areas. Goodbye lidless Tupperware! Even the fridge was a project we took on together. Begone, soup greens from the Bush administration. (No judging if it was even the first Bush!)
But don’t rest on those laurels. This next go round should be a bit easier since you have gone through it all recently.
Start with the “what-if-I-lose-those-10-lbs” wardrobe items, and progress into the heels that were oh so cute — and expensive — but hurt each time they were worn. Gift or donate. Have you again accumulated take-out containers? Update some stained ones and recycle the rest.
There’s no need to fill up all your storage areas
People tend to fill up their storage area with as much as it can handle. This makes it harder to find exactly what you are looking for, whether it is that purple scarf hiding among dozens of other scarves, or the warranty information for the smart TV.
So why do we have three unopened ketchups in the pantry and four packages of new panty hose (when was the last time that we actually wore pantry hose)? Is the fear of “running out” of something so great? Is it because the sale price was too good to walk away from? What would actually happen if we ran low on extra toothbrushes?
Is it because we just know that as soon as we get rid of something we will discover we need it? Right away?
It’s probably a little bit of all of that. And developing a reasonable approach to tackling the clutter is the only way it will get reduced.
Whether you do a room at a time or focus on a category like books or purses is up to you. Don’t start too large. Doing one dresser, or even one drawer in a dresser, is a perfectly good starting place.
The professionals at A Simpler Life Now are really, really good at helping you figure out what to keep and what you really don’t need anymore. Please let us know if we can help with your projects.