If you feel tense, irritable, or just plain blah in what should be the comfort of your own home, maybe you’ve got a “stuff” problem. Stuff on the dining table, stuff hanging out of drawers, and stuff piled on or near your bed can get to be a huge drain on your energy. How are you supposed to relax?
Stuff takes a lot of physical and mental energy
Many people enjoy shopping and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you buy things you don’t really need just for the fun of buying things, your home can become an unmanageable mess. Closets bulge, dresser drawers are stuck, and you have to move one thing to get to another. You may even be buying things you already have, but have misplaced. Clutter makes everything more of a challenge than it should be. It’s an exhausting way to live.
Professional Organizer Melody Grainger tells Care2, “While everyone has a different tolerance level of how many possessions they can have around them before they hit a energy-zapping breaking point, they rarely understand how deeply a lot of stuff — even if it is organized beautifully — is invisibly weighing them down and slowing them down. There are a lot of actions that have to happen in order to continue caring for many possessions, which takes up your time, reduces your open space, involves more decision-making, tests your patience, and requires energy to keep up with it all! Stuff or ‘clutter’ takes up physical and mental energy, which is why it can be such a HUGE energy sapper. You may have heard the saying, ‘less is more.’ It’s an incredible statement that holds so much truth to it, because when we have less we tend to make decisions faster, receive a TON more focus and energy, and life is just plain easier.”
Certified Life Coach Marie Dubuque says, “When you declutter your surrounds, you declutter your mind. That’s why we all feel so good when we have cleaned up and reorganized. Stop viewing ‘stuff’ as a barometer of how successful you are in life. Figure out what really makes you happy. It’s probably more like people…not things.”
Stuff stops you from getting a good night’s sleep
You’re more likely to get replenishing sleep if your bedroom is free of clutter. All that beeping and booping and blinking of electronic equipment can interfere with sleep. If you have a digital clock, face it away from your field of vision. Even a little bit of digital light is enough to disturb your sleep. Keep games and work items out of the bedroom. You’ll go to sleep feeling stressed if there’s a stack of bills and an unbalanced checkbook staring at you. And there’s no harm in having a good book or two to read yourself to sleep, but piles of magazines and newspapers will only make you feel overwhelmed. Cluttered room, cluttered mind.
Your bedroom should be an oasis — a pleasant place to relax and recharge. Remove the unnecessary stuff and give yourself some breathing room at the end of the day.
Holiday and post-holiday stuff can give you the blues
The period from Halloween to New Year’s Day is a beautiful time of year. We change out one set of decorations for another as we go from holiday to holiday and celebrate the season. Then comes January second and the season is over. Taking down those decorations and neatly packing them away is not quite as fun as putting them up. Besides all those decorations, the house is full of new toys and gifts, not to mention those extra items you bought for yourself because of that great discount. Pretty soon, the disorganization and sad remnants of Christmas past is dragging you down.
Ms. Grainger offers these words of advice, “For every bag of items that you acquire over the holidays, remove the new items, then refill the bag with items to donate, pass-on, recycle, or trash. Before you know it, you’ll have less clutter and more space to store your new things, so they are easier to get to, enjoy and put away. Be warned…decluttering is an addicting process, so you may need to grab a few more bags from under your kitchen sink to hold all the items you’re purging. You’ll probably begin noticing immediately how you’re feeling like a newly energized you! There’s no better way for starting the year off fresh, than letting go of the old to make room for the New Year YOU.”
