You need to be able
to tell which items in your home are actually clutter and which are not if you
want to progress on your decluttering journey
It's not always
simple to spot clutter, though. As
almost anything, from obvious rubbish to the most priceless antiques, can be
clutter, it can be sneaky and dangerous.
Additionally, an
item that might be regarded as clutter for one person is almost certainly not
for another. You’ve heard the saying “one
man’s trash is another man’s treasure” haven’t you?
Below are five
criteria you can use to determine whether something in your home could be
classed as clutter. I put a lot of emphasis on the word "could,"
since defining what constitutes clutter in your home is so individualised.
You'll see that a lot of the things that might be clutter have emotional attachments
to them.
Simply reflect on
this list this week as you go through your possessions to start the process of
identifying your clutter and any emotions that are preventing you from getting
rid of it from your home.
1: Clutter can be anything,
whether it's cheap or expensive, sentimental or disposable.
Before you can
eliminate clutter from your home, you must understand what constitutes clutter.
The common misconception about clutter is that its rubbish and junk that we
don't care about at all and that fills up our homes.
There isn't a
hard-and-fast rule for defining clutter, though rubbish is unquestionably
clutter. Those empty pop bottles that
sit on the side table can’t be classed as anything but, can they?
However, don't
automatically disregard something just because you (or a loved one) spent a lot
of money on it when you take a critical look at the items in your home. Clutter
can be created even with expensive items.
The same is true of
antiques and personal memorabilia. Don't automatically rule out these items as
not being clutter in your home just because they are expensive, valuable, or
sentimental. Yes, these gifts were given out of kindness, however, they might
just clutter your home and take away the happiness they were meant to bring.
2. Clutter can result from having
an excess of a particular type of item.
As they say, you
can have too much of a good thing – except for cake – you can never have too
much of a good cake 😊.
Getting back to the topic of clutter – this can happen when we begin to accumulate
a sizable assortment of a specific kind of item.
Collections are one
instance of this; if we're not careful, they can easily transform from
something that makes us happy and brings us joy - into clutter. This calls for you to be
particularly critical of any collections you do have and you need to do some
serious soul-searching to decide whether they are actually things you should
keep or whether they are just gathering dust and taking up valuable space in
your home.
Additionally,
having a few particular items, like a pair of shoes, or a few kitchen tools, is
advantageous because it gives you options, variety, and useful items for
various occasions. However, what was once a nice selection of options to choose
from turns into an overwhelming mound of clutter when you start to accumulate
too many of a specific item. Like my wooden
spoons, if you don’t know what I’m talking about – you will have to read the
post How
to Declutter your Utensils.
When assessing your
home to determine clutter, you should be wary of anything that you have a lot
of. Another thing in my home that
multiplies are umbrellas. How many umbrellas
does one family need? In case you are
curious – It is certainly not 15, when there are only 4 of us, and 1 doesn’t like
using them… I’m not saying that there
will be clutter everywhere, but if you're not careful, there very well might
be!
3. Things that were once useful
can become clutter.
A common occurrence
is that after using something for a while, our circumstances change, and it is
no longer as useful to us, so we stop using it.
The object then turns into clutter as it starts to gather dust in a
corner. The problem with clutter is that
some of it may have once been useful.
Because of this, if
you're trying to reduce clutter in your home, you need to be constantly
vigilant. You've got to question items every time you pick them up, to decide
if they're clutter or not, try and notice when you no longer use an item any
more if it’s not being used – it’s time to discard.
4. If you have no room for it - it's
clutter.
Even if you have
some cool things, clutter results if they don't fit in your room, or the
available living or storage space.
Even the most
seasoned declutter-er can find this challenging.
This is frequently encountered when downsizing your property, and it
just doesn't seem fair. But the truth is that something no longer belongs in
your house if it constantly causes a tripping hazard or sits outside gathering
dust.
Now, hold off on
throwing away everything you've just come across. This category of items is
challenging because you must first confirm that you are not allotting storage
space to actual clutter, which could free up space for this crucial item. It
isn't clutter at all if you can get rid of something else to make room for it,
and you've already shown its value by doing so.
The fact that there
is a finite amount of space means that sometimes hard decisions must be made.
If you can't give something a place in your house, it sadly doesn't belong
there.
5. Clutter is anything that you
don't use or love.
This brings me to
my final definition of clutter, which also serves to summarise the other
principles and rules presented above:
Rule to reduce clutter: If you
don't love or use it, it's clutter.
Ideally, everything
in your house should have a purpose so that you can keep it clutter-free. You
should either use it or love it so that every time you see it, it either helps
you with something or makes you feel good.
Practically
speaking, we can't use everything we have, so having too much stuff is a
problem. While I'm not advocating using every item you own every day, you can
only wear so many pairs of shoes or cardigans in a year, for instance.
Sometimes clutter has
as much to do with your emotions as anything else. Simply consider some of the
aforementioned suggestions this week as you look around your home and formulate
some initial ideas about what, in your opinion, constitutes clutter.
I'd love to hear
your thoughts on this in the comments! Which of these points constitute the majority
of clutter in your home?