This post is sponsored by Fort Knox Storage
Recently, I did a massive clean-out of my apartment. It was on a day when we had the cleaners come, so I didn’t have to do any other cleaning, leaving my domestic energy unspent and ready to de-clutter. (Just on that topic, I highly advise getting cleaners if you can. Particularly if you’re in a share apartment, or just with your partner, having cleaners come once a fortnight or even once a month at about $70 a pop is SO worth it. If you can share the expense it’s even easier to fit it into the budget, and saves just so much effort and hassle when you’re working full-time).
There’s something so figuratively rewarding about removing unused or unwanted items from your home. Not only does it clear the way for new things to come into your life, it just felt to me like I was ridding myself of unwanted junk, both physically and emotionally, which was so freeing.
One of my favorite resources on de-cluttering and satisfaction in your home life in general is Gretchen Rubin’s book Happier at Home. In it, Rubin quotes British literary giant Samuel Johnson as saying, “To be happier at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends.”
So simple – and yet before I’d read the statement, I’d never thought of life quite like that before. It is actually true, though. We put so much emphasis on what happens outside of the home, and not that much on what happens inside it, that we forget that all of our toils are actually working to create peace inside this little sanctuary. How many people experience such peace, I wonder?
I know that I have, at times throughout my life, experienced very little peace at all in my home – usually the direct result of unhappiness in general life, or poor relationships, or not putting myself high enough on the agenda, or money.
It is only in the past few years that home has been right up there on my list of important things. I mean, having a roof over my head has always been important but ensuring it’s one that I love, cherish and am happy in? That’s fairly new, and usually comes only with having one’s own money in which to build the desired haven.
So, if all of our external efforts are all for being happier at home, it seems to me ironic that so many of us work so much that we rarely get to experience home or the people in it at all. Or if we do, it’s for so few hours. But I digress.
In Rubin’s pursuit of being happier at home, she wrote, “I decided to start my happiness project with the theme of “Possessions”, not because I thought possessions were the most important aspect of my home – they weren’t – but because I knew that in many cases, my possessions blocked my view and weighed me down.”
I agree that possessions can certainly weigh one down, and create needless mental clutter as a mirror of the physical. This was certainly my experience; and a lightening of the load was able to create the opposite effect. When I sorted through drawers stuffed with papers and receipts, and boxes of childhood memorabilia, and recycled old magazines, and gave to charity unused games and other items around the house, I felt like a huge weight had been shifted from my life.
Where previously my home had been filled with unwanted or unused items, now there was space cleared – potentially for new and far more beloved things to come into my life.
If you’re thinking of de-cluttering, here’s some tips:
- Have you used it in the past 12 months? If not, get rid of it or look at storage options (Fort Knox Storage is one safe option for any items that you don’t want to completely get rid of, but don’t have space for in the home).
- Does it still work with the style of your home? Do you love it? There’s no point keeping furniture or other bits and pieces around if you really don’t like them. It will just be a source of negativity and frustration when you’re at home. Give it away to friends who could benefit or charity; sell it on eBay or organize a council clean up (it’s free in my local area to pre-arrange pick up – check your local council’s website for bookings and details).
- Do you need to keep it? If it’s boxes or receipts, are they old and outdated? Do you still use the items? Are they still within warranty period? If you absolutely need it, keep it tucked away in a safe place. If it can go, chuck it.
How do you feel when you do a ‘spring clean’?
