Ridding a home of clutter can often seem like an unconquerable task. There are so many things that can get in our way. However, when you know the common challenges before you get started, you will be ready to overcome them. So here are a few of the more difficult obstacles that make it tough to declutter a home.
Guilt that you might declutter a home of memories
Things might trigger memories, but those things aren’t the cherished memories. If you’ve never used that gift your partner bought you a few years ago, then it’s ok to part from it. A beloved family member who has passed is not going to haunt you about a knickknack. (Surely, being petty isn’t the vibe in the great beyond.) It can be hard to declutter a home. While we’re not directly connected with the objects, they can represent connections with people we love. It can feel disloyal to get rid of them.
Embrace a few strategies. These will help you get started.
- For example, embrace the idea of living small. Limit the items you can keep.
- Rent a storage unit for the hard-to-get-rid-of items and store them away for the next 6 months or a year. Then you can assess how often you even think about them during that period. This should help you see that you can happily live without them.
- Take pictures of the items and keep them in a photo album. It’s even better if you can make a digital album. So you get to keep the memories without creating more real-world clutter.
Concern about the environment
A common reason that many of us find decluttering challenging is that we worry about the environmental impact of the items we want to throw out. Do the items still have use in them? Could you recycle it? Is it a new item but you can’t use it? It can be even more challenging.
Of course, we always have the opportunity to separate these items into piles and then deal with them differently. You can donate gently used items to places like Habitat for Humanity ReStore. While this strategy works well for a single room or a few items, it can be extremely challenging and time-consuming if you are dealing with an entire house of stuff—like from a family member who recently passed.
That’s when it can be a better idea to work with a junk removal service like The Junkluggers who can maximize the positive impact decluttering can have on the environment by keeping unnecessary trash out of landfills. They evaluate everything and then donate, recycle, or properly dispose of each item. This ensures you can feel safe in the knowledge that your decluttering will not harm the environment.
Inability to start to declutter
Whether it’s a single cupboard or a whole property, it often feels very intimidating and overwhelming just getting started. It’s easy to keep putting it off until tomorrow or next weekend indefinitely. That is why you need to think of the decluttering process as less of a one-time thing, and more of a way of life. This means instead of one-off decluttering sessions that seem impossible to begin with, do short-timed sessions regularly to help you keep on top of things. In this way you can make decluttering a part of the way you live and not a one-off task that is easy to always put off.
I try to focus on one room at a time, one month at a time. This way, by the end of each year, I’ve tackled the entire house. And then it’s time to start over again. Yes, it’s an endless cycle. But there’s also a seemingly endless line of new things coming in and worn-out things waiting to leave.
When you start to feel good about how you declutter a home, that’s just the starting line. Staying in the game, especially when you have kids at home, can take a lot of patience and consistent practice. We’re lucky to have access to so much stuff, but we also need to remember that the stuff isn’t life. It’s just the tools we use to experience this life with our loved ones. It’s ok to let those items go.
What strategies do you use to get started and stay motivated? How do you declutter a home successfully? Share your comments below. We’d love to hear from you.
And if you want a little more inspiration, check out the positivity of Marie Kondo and her strategies for tidying up.
