What are the benefits of decluttering your home?
The thought of decluttering your home can feel overwhelming and be hard to know where to start, especially if you have left things for a while to build up. Despite this, decluttering and organising your home can have a list of benefits for your mental and physical health, as well as make your life easier to find things in your home.
We take a look at why you should keep on top of clutter in your home and share expert advice for how to approach this.
Boost mood and productivity
They say a tidy mind equals a tidy life and science seems to back this up. A study first published in 2009 found that women who described their living spaces as cluttered or full of unfinished projects were more likely to be fatigued and depressed than women who described their homes as restful and restorative.
Create space in your home for activities
Not all of us have vast space in our homes to use for recreational activities such as exercise, meaning we have to be clever about how we manage the space we have. Regularly decluttering, moving items into self storage and getting rid of outdated items will leave you with more space to be able to do more in your home.
Make money by selling old things
Many items we keep hold of can increase in value. You may be surprised at how old furniture or toys can appreciate over time. When clearing out, be sure to put items to one side that you think might hold value. Do some online research and look for local experts you can visit and get a valuation for your items before you decide to part with them.
Reduce risk of allergy triggers
Dust mites, pet dander and pollen can build up on items which sit idle for a long time without being cleaned, making it important for your general health to keep on top of your cleaning and decluttering. Having excess items which you don’t need leads to an increased chance of allergens building up in your home and potentially triggering allergies for hay fever sufferers.
Reduce home cleaning time
Not only does excess clutter mean more dust and allergens, but it means there is more to clean in your home and therefore increases your regular cleaning time needed. The less items you have, the less cleaning time needed, making your daily routine simpler and quicker.
Make it easier to find needed items
There’s nothing worse than needing to find something in your home and having an overwhelming volume of items to search through. Having less clutter will make it easier to see tabletops, search drawers and access areas of your rooms without excess items blocking your way. Not only does this make it easier to search but it makes finding items in a hurry much quicker.
Improve your sleep
Believe it or not, but clutter is known to impact our sleep quality. If you sleep in a room with excess clutter, expert research shows you’re more likely to have disturbed sleep and struggle to fall asleep at night. This is because clutter triggers your body’s stress response, impacting your ability to sleep peacefully.
Make your home hospitable for guests
Getting rid of clutter or moving it out of sight to storage facilities means you can present your home in a way where you’ll be proud to welcome guests. Removing clutter will enable you to focus on your home decor. It will get your interior up to a standard you’re happy with and make your home perfect for hosting friends and family.
Where to start with decluttering?
Approaching any big task such as decluttering a room or entire home can be overwhelming, so instead of viewing the project as a mammoth task it’s recommended to break down the individual tasks in your mind. To help you mentally approach the idea of tackling such a big project, set out first and foremost the end goal. This goal could be to declutter the room. Alternatively, it might be to reduce the items in the room by putting things into storage or selling them.
Once you’ve done this, bullet point a few of the key tasks along the way which could get you to this goal. These are set as milestones. This could look like starting with disposable items to bin first. The next step could be putting aside obvious items to keep so these are out of the way. You may want to categorise your items and tackle these one at a time e.g. magazines and books could be one milestone. As you go along, the act of completing the smaller milestones and recognising this progress will motivate you to reach the end goal. This shift in mindset looks at the partial success you’ve achieved in a positive light, instead of feeling negative for not having completed the entire project.
Try breaking your cleaning tasks down into smaller task lists so it feels less overwhelming to begin with. Make a playlist of motivating songs to help you focus and enjoy the process as you go. Fast tempo music can encourage you to power through those less exciting tasks.
You should also remove any distractions to reduce the temptation of procrastination. Pick your timing accordingly to make sure your family won’t be needing use of the rooms you’re cleaning at each stage as this can slow things down and be counter productive if they’re making a mess as you clean. Try planning your big clean when members of your household are out to maximise your productivity. Getting your cleaning done in the morning can also be more productive as you can make use of the natural light to see spots missed better.
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