When we last wrote about why fall is a great time for housecleaning, we talked about the need to declutter your garage before using it to store your summer patio furniture, gardening tools and sports equipment.
Clutter is often thought of as just a sign of untidiness, or the result of someone not having time to organize their things. But clutter is actually a little more complicated than that.
There’s a psychological side to clutter. More than one study has linked clutter to increased feelings of stress. In other words, if you get rid of the clutter in your life, you might also get rid of some of the stress in your life too.
Here’s how it can work. If your bedroom is always cluttered with clothing, think about how much less cluttered it would be if you only had a single outfit. Of course, that’s unrealistic, but it highlights the fact that many of us have many more clothes, and other things, than we really need and, if clutter is affecting our lives, getting rid of older stuff might help.
If you’re getting rid of anything around the home, the fall is as good a time as any to do it. The change of seasons means there are lots of things around the house, like that old, sputtering lawn mower, that we won’t be using until next year, so getting rid of it now means it won’t be missed so much.
To help you get started with decluttering, here’s a list of things you can get rid of right now.
1. Wardrobe
If you switch out your summer and winter clothes every spring and fall, take a look at what you’re putting away. If there’s anything that you didn’t wear all summer, or didn’t feel comfortable wearing, think about donating it to Goodwill, or handing it down to someone who might appreciate it.
2. Expired Products
If your kitchen and bathroom cupboards and drawers are a cluttered mess, this is one way to help you quickly lose at least some of the clutter. Go through your personal care, medical, health and beauty products in your bathroom and throw out anything that’s expired, or that you haven’t used in who knows how long, or things like that cute travel-sized deodorant you picked up, but never use.
Do the same in the kitchen with any food products. Even if they haven’t expired, if you haven’t eaten it after it’s been in the cupboard for a year, are you really going to eat that pickled herring?
3. The Miscellaneous Pile
Among others, many of the things you have cluttering your living room or bedroom right now that you don’t absolutely need or are not likely to use, will fall into this section. In no particular order, were talking about old magazines, worn out bedding, shoes, things you thought might come in handy one day but that you still haven’t used these so many years later, just about everything you have in that back room in the basement, the apple corer, and, well, hopefully you’re getting the idea.
Decluttering doesn’t just help you clean the house, but it makes it easier for you to keep the house clean because there are fewer things to clutter it up.
