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Article Series: Organization
I Have An Urge To Get Organized
How
To De-Clutter Your Home
When you first start de-cluttering your home,
you will be faced with one constant dilemma: what to do with
all this stuff! In fact, de-cluttering is quite an eye-opening
experience if you struggle with a lack mentality. You quickly
realize that you have more “abundance” than you know what to
do with!
As you de-clutter, some items will have a clear destination.
Trash goes into the trash bin, dirty clothing goes to the laundry
room or hamper, and items that belong in other rooms can be
moved there. However, other items might cause you to freeze
like a deer suddenly caught in the glare of headlights on a
lonely highway. What should be done with it?
To make the de-cluttering process as simple and easy as possible,
begin by designating 7 categories into which you will sort
all items.
1.
Trash
This
is for items that are no longer good, useable, or needed.
This includes actual trash like empty food containers,
wrappers, broken items, and so on, as well as stained or
torn clothing, or anything else that serves no purpose.
2.
Recycle
Newspapers,
magazines, junk mail, glass and plastic containers can go
in this pile if your community has a recycling
program.
3.
Donate
Clothing,
house wares, media like DVDs and CDs can be given away if
you no longer need them, as well as decorative
items, shoes, purses, tote bags, etc. You can also “donate”
items to friends and family members! If your mother’s china
hutch takes up too much room in your dining area, ask a family
member if they want it. Give your used paperback books to
your best friend. Besides clearing up your home, you’ll be
doing
something nice for others.
4.
Sell
If
you have larger or more valuable items that you’d rather
not give away, consider selling them on ebay, in a local
consignment shop, or having a yard sale.
5.
Process
This
category is for paperwork or other things that require action
of some sort before it can be filed away
permanently.
6.
File
For
paperwork that needs to be kept, but is not used frequently.
Receipts, appliance manuals, school letters and
miscellaneous correspondence can take up a lot of room! Hopefully
you already have a filing system in place. If not, get some
good filing cabinets or file storage boxes, and be sure to
label all the files so you can find something quickly if
you need to.
7.
Keep
Finally,
this pile is for items you want to keep, and which will be
stored away neatly in a designated spot. The biggest challenge in de-cluttering is being firm with
yourself about the items you really need to keep, and which
items can be released. Rule of thumb: if you haven’t used it
recently and don’t have any firm purpose in mind for the use
of it in the near future, be willing to part with it.
If you struggle with separation anxiety and worry that you
might need something later, ask yourself what you would do
if that happened? Would it be a big imposition to go buy a
replacement at a later time? It’s easy to talk ourselves into
believing something is more important than it really is, when
we could easily obtain a similar or better one later if we
really wanted to.
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SolveYourProblem.com
: 2008
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