Decluttering is more than just about cleaning and reorganizing your physical space. It’s about clearing out the extra junk in all areas of your life that don’t serve a meaningful purpose.
You may ask why am I talking about decluttering in a blog post on a soap site? We create our products to help benefit you in a holistic sense. Our aromatherapy-based products help soothe your soul as well as your skin and we firmly believe that promoting self-care in the largest sense is a part of our mission.
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The main point of this post is to help promote clarity so you make the right decisions to benefit your life. We are all bombarded with so much incoming “stuff.” From our inboxes to our closets taking stock and clearing things out is essential to be able to simply function. Decluttering allows you to take control of your environment and time so that you can find the motivation to keep moving forward.
3 Benefits of Decluttering for Self-Care:
1. Decrease Brain Fog for Mental Health Benefits
A cluttered space can affect your thought process in big ways. For example, studies show that clutter like stacks of paper or an unorganized desktop can make people feel anxiety.
On the other hand, cleaning up and organizing around you is a simple and sometimes quick way to clear your mental fog, focus better, and make smarter decisions.
I feel like this image pretty much encompasses it all. It is a paired-down crisp, clean area for working with both a physical notepad or journal, a cell phone, and a laptop.
Clutter accumulates in our living and working spaces both physically and digitally. As a small business owner, simply keeping my inbox at a manageable level can be a tough job.
To Decrease Stress and Anxiety
People who live in cluttered environments report more issues with stress and anxiety than those who have a neater and more organized environment. How many times have you found yourself hunting around for something you know is “here somewhere”?
Are you saying right now, “Yeah, yeah, Susan! And when am I supposed to find the time to get all this stuff organized?” Believe me, I KNOW the feeling!!
But ask yourself, how much time do you spend looking for things that should be in “their” place, not to mention the stress and frustration having to embark on said search generates?
Providing a home for everything and putting everything back in that home when finished stops rushing and hurrying when you can’t find something. You have to start somewhere to break the cycle.
To Increased Self-Motivation and Time Management
Having your environment decluttered helps with self-motivation because starting your next task doesn’t mean you have to create the space or find the tools or sort things out first.
It helps with time management because you are actually working on what you want to work on instead of prepping to be able to work on it. There is a difference!!
Keeping your environment decluttered requires you:
- To invest in proper storage solutions
- Narrow down what you need to stay close at hand
- Set up a schedule that includes setting up and breaking down. Scheduling this in makes it much more likely that it will actually happen.
Don’t try and make this happen all in a day. Pick a room or an area of activity and then give yourself an hour or even 30 min. a day. Or if you work better in larger chunks of time, set aside one morning each weekend for a month and see if you can’t make a difference in both the clutter and your life.
3 quick tips for the best decluttering:
Organize by Room
Each room has a purpose, and only the things that need to be used in that room should exist in that room.
If you work from home and you can’t dedicate an entire room for it, then assign a space and keep all of your work within that space. Try for the first image and not the second.
Don’t spread out on the kitchen table. Keep it for eating. Don’t use your laptop in bed. Keep your bedroom for sleeping and relaxing, not working. Keep the family room for well, family.
By keeping each room to be used for its purpose you can focus better as well as actually enjoy what you are trying to accomplish whether it is a good night’s sleep, cooking dinner for the family, or writing a blog post.
Pack and Unpack
If you go on a trip, don’t just throw your suitcase in the room and forget about it. Instead, really unpack it at the hotel, and then do the same when you get home. Just make sure you double-check all the drawers before you leave the hotel. 😉
Likewise, periodically go through everything at home. Pull it all out from your drawers and closets. Pile clothes on the bed, shoes on the floor at home. Then systemically go through and make a home for what you need.
Ask “Do I Use It?” or Have Less Stuff
When you are systematically going through all the stuff you pulled out; ask yourself the all-important question, Am I using it? If you’ve not used it for an entire year, then you probably won’t miss it if it’s gone.
Don’t ask, Do I need it? At one point you thought you did. If you go down that road, you may talk yourself into keeping it. By asking if you are really using it, you get the true answer of whether or not you should keep it.
Which image looks shows an environment that looks more calm and serene? Which space draws you in and makes you want to sit down and work and create? Sometimes the easiest way to declutter is to simply remove and get rid of.
Try for All the Benefits
If you desire a life with less anxiety, more clarity, and boosted motivation, adding decluttering to your self-care plan is a good strategy. Follow the tips and suggestions above to ensure you get the most out of this self-care technique.
No one thinks that your home should be spotless or like a hotel room or anything, but your environment should make it easy for you to locate and use what you need without too much trouble. After all, if you want to paint in your downtime, you’re simply not going to do it if you have to do too much work to set it up and tear it down.
Looking for More on Self-Care? Check out these blog posts:
- 4 Quick Points to Know About Healthy Self-Care vs. Selfishness
- The 7 Types of Self Care You Absolutely Need to Know.
- 10 Easy Steps to a Self Care Plan for Less Stress
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Decluttering helps in many ways. Not only does it allow one to relieve stress but it can help them complete day-to-day tasks, including those associated with work. Great tips here!