OPTED Magazine

If you are attempting to declutter your home, the constant flood of items coming in may make it seem impossible to make progress.  Imagine building a sand castle with a moat at the beach, and then the tide comes in and even as you rebuild the castle and bail out the water as fast as you can, the water keeps on coming.

But what if you could stop the water?  What if you could stop (or at least slow) the volume of items entering your home?

Part of having a clutter free environment is maintaining that environment, which means committing to the mantra of “less is more” and resisting impulse buys and more purchases that clutter your home.  While buying no “extras” is unavoidable, if you’re planning a declutter and purge quest it would be smart to reduce the flow of things coming in so you can temporarily increase the flow of things going out.

Consider the following two rules for your strategy:

Rule #1: for one month, buy nothing but food, and necessities such as toilet paper and toiletries.

Only the essentials for one month, you can do that right?!  Besides the benefit of saving money, you’ve drastically reduced the inflow of items into your home.  In many cases, the only other items coming in would be paper mail or items transferred from work or a car that you already owned.

During that month, make it a high priority to select a room every few days and remove clutter.  Sort items into “donate” “sell” “recycle” and “trash” until you feel confident that you’ve eliminated the clutter in your spaces.

While I recommend continuing the “buy only essentials” for as long as possible, once you return to your normal, unrestricted state adopt this rule:

Rule #2: for everything I buy, another item is donated, sold, recycled or trashed

For example, a new pair of shoes means another pair has to go, or a new book means one of your other books is off to a library for others to enjoy.  Think of your possessions as zero sum, meaning it’s one or the other.  This second rule will ensure that even as you make more purchases and bring more items into your home that are non-essentials, other items leaving the house should balance each other out.

Sunday is the start of a new week — try out the strategy beginning this weekend!

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