Continuous paring and limited new things will help you keep things tidy, save you money and improve your life experience.
Spend 30 minutes every week to declutter and your home will be an amazing refuge.
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Tag: tidy
Tidy Up Your Financial Affairs
Have you got anything outstanding? Is there an invoice you should have sent? Or perhaps some taxes that are due to be filed? Maybe you have an insurance claim or credit cards to attend to.
Whatever it is, it will take longer than you think to do and won’t get done until you sit there for several hours and sort it out. Don’t let it keep drifting along. Complete the work today!
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Did You Tidy Something?
Hearing good advice is one thing and doing it is a whole other level. I tidied out a drawer that tends to get filled with things. Felt good to do it. One clear and tidy space. How did you get on?
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Tidy And Organise
This is amazingly cathartic. Getting rid of things that no longer bring you joy or are needed in any way can lift a weight off your shoulders. Recycling old papers, bank statements, messages and the like, helps keep surfaces cleaner and files thinner. This makes it easier to find the important things.
Take a day or two and rid yourself of any mountains you have. Then do it daily and again weekly. It’s like mowing your lawn or showering, it’s often better with greater frequency, not less.
Then when you have less stuff, it’s easier to organise those papers, files, toys, gadgets or general items. Be brutal with this concept. Refuse to let any random item have space in your life. Bin it, recycle, give away or cherish, but with a specific place of its own. Life will get better.
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Keep Your Finances Updated And Tidy
There are many reasons to do this. It’s an investment in you and your personal well-being for starters. Knowing where things are at financially is calming, liberating and allows maximum fun.
If you know your bills are paid, your emergency account is fully funded and your investments are working day and night for you, you will have a greater sense of calm. And it lasts all year. Not just the week or two of calm you get from going on a holiday. Especially if your bills pile up, your admin gets behind and you blow your emergency funds on your, ‘but I needed it!’ trip.
Also, if you were incapacitated or died, could someone step in and know where everything was? Are all the accounts easy to find? Is there an up-to-date will? Are bills on direct debit? Or would someone have to hunt around and figure out what to pay and when?
Do this for you, and your heirs or carers. Start today and have it all sorted by the 15th July (2022!!). Go!
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Don’t Leave It To The Kids
Have you had a look around your house recently? Are there books, clothes, papers, tools or toys that should be tossed? Don’t leave it to the kids to clean up your mess when you are gone.
One of the best things a parent can ever do for their children is to keep their house streamlined. Every year it is easy to add more things to the family collection.
We buy new clothes but don’t always give away or recycle older clothes. We tell ourselves we will still wear the item once in awhile and it is still good. Or the classic thought that we will fit into it after we drop a few pounds this year.
Old sports equipment also gets this treatment. We assume we will use it again one day. I enjoyed squash in my 20’s so I am bound to start it up again in my 40’s or 50’s. Right?
Books you’ve read build a library. But is it a library worth keeping? Would the kids want to inherit this collection? Keep your absolute favourites on a shelf. However, gift all the others to your children now or send those books off to the local library or charity shop.
Take a picture if any items that conjure up fond memories.
Just don’t leave it to your kids to clear out all your stuff.
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Get Tidy And Organised
Do you have piles of papers, books or things piling up anywhere? Or are you obsessively neat? Get tidy and organised and you might notice a new sense of confidence, pride and relaxation.
One of the key aspects to life is setting up your environment to win. If you want to lose weight, place your walking gear at the end of the bed so its easy to just go in the morning. And stop buying the crisps, chocolate and ice cream. If it is not in the house, you can’t eat it.
So it stands to reason that if you want to be more relaxed, make your space more relaxing. One way to do this is to remove all things that might make relaxing even slightly less easy. Tidy up books and papers. Donate books and place papers where they belong. What else is on show that needs to go?
Tidying up can be cathartic. You gain a sense of control. In addition you may feel a greater pride of place. One other benefit is being able to find things quickly.
Getting things organised is the start. And it can take a little while to get there. In the meantime though, train yourself to put things in their place immediately. Don’t simply ‘set things down for a minute’.
Get tidy and organised. You’ll love it.
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Declutter: Get It Out!
Stuffocation, minimalism, the KonMari Method. It’s all there to get you to Declutter: Get it out!
Education phase:
Quite a few years ago, I found myself quite deeply involved in a decluttering phase. I was reading books, watching videos, and listening to podcasts. My days were focused on practicing the techniques and getting rid of things that I was inadvertently collecting.
I noticed that the minimalists had the right idea as far as bringing stuff into the house was concerned. The best thing to do was not to bring new things into your home. The only exception was when you knew exactly where you were going to put them.
Changing Habits:
Well, my newspaper and magazine habit had been thinning out for years before this anyway. However, now I would gather even fewer of them in a month. I also committed to throwing them in the recycle bin before I entered the house. By doing so they couldn’t lurk on a table or other surface for weeks.
If I did not throw it away on my way in, I would give myself three days to read or recycle it. If it wasn’t important enough now to squeeze it into my day, when will I ever make the time. The merely interesting must be binned quickly. The compelling will have time allocated.
Sort for Joy:
The ‘Declutter: Get it out!’ types also had a key message. Bit by bit, get rid of it. Sort out a drawer to get some momentum. Then maybe a cupboard.
As Marie Kondo would suggest, the item must bring you joy if you are going to keep it. I was a little sceptical of the term at first, but now I use it all of the time to weed things out at home and also at the point of consumption. Does it bring me joy.
Tips toward success:
Anyone who has ever been on a diet will recognise this truism: It is easier to keep it out than get rid of it later. So if you are going to put significant effort into decluttering (or weight loss), focus on being a disciplined minimalist when it comes to consumption.
One of the best tips came from the minimalists. Take a picture of the thing and then give it away. For most things, the picture will be enough to bring back the memory of the item, event or time.
Now may be a great time to declutter and give your space a little Spring clean. You’ll feel amazing clearing out a drawer, cupboard or whole room! The whole process can be quite liberating. Good luck with it!
(fyi, if you found the Coronavirus Exit Strategy post compelling, you may find its follow up article worth reading. It considers the next 2-3 years living like this, under lockdown, and some alternatives. Find it here.)
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