A new year is often regarded as a new beginning by many. It’s a time when they can start on an empty slate and make changes based on mistakes or experiences they have had in the past year.
One way to greet a new year is by decluttering your home. This will allow you to make space for new things and new experiences. Decluttering can also be symbolic of leaving things you no longer need behind. But apart from those things, decluttering can benefit you in many ways.
How to Declutter
To declutter your home, you’ll need to prepare bins to separate things. You can start with four bins: one for things to keep, one for things to donate, one for things to sell, and another for things to throw away. When you start cleaning up, it’s best to do one zone at a time so that you’re not overwhelmed. For example, you might start with your bedroom first. Only after you finish decluttering that zone will you proceed with other parts of your house.
Benefits of Decluttering
Boost Productivity
Clutter triggers procrastination. It also causes distraction. For example, say someone who needs to focus on writing an essay. If their workspace is filled with a bunch of papers piled up or pieces of trash, they won’t focus on writing. Instead, they might feel like they want to clean and organize their space, which will delay their task. Or they might postpone writing altogether because they couldn’t focus.
Given this scenario, decluttering can help boost productivity. Without the clutter, you can dedicate your full attention to what you’re doing.
Reduce Stress
A study found that mothers who had cluttered homes had higher stress levels than mothers with organized homes. In retrospect, this checks out even for other people.
If you have a messy living space, then you’ll have to clean more often. Tidying up can take a lot of time. So this activity can take away your precious time to rest instead and lead to stress. And interestingly, if you feel stressed, you’ll also tend to produce more clutter. It’s a never-ending vicious cycle.
Thus, you need to declutter your place and keep your things organized to keep your stress levels at bay. This will also benefit your overall health, such as getting adequate sleep.
Improve Air Quality in Your Home
If you have a lot of clutter at home, dust can easily accumulate and affect your home’s air quality. Also, having so much stuff around you can make your home feel stuffy and suffocating. The worst case is that the clutter you’ve accumulated would cause mold, which can lead to health concerns.
As such, you need to declutter your home, especially before the year ends. You need to stay as healthy as you can in the coming year, especially since the global pandemic has yet to come to a close.
Reduce Pest Infestation
When clutter piles up, pests tend to hide under them. And having pests at home can lead to more unpleasant problems. For example, pests are known to be disease carriers, so if they start gathering in your home under the clutter, you can potentially become sick.
Thus, you need to declutter to get rid of the trash piled up in your home. And if you do find pests while you’re cleaning, you will need to call a reputable exterminator to help you out with getting rid of these pests.
Save and Earn Money
When you declutter your home, you can make an inventory of the things you already own. You can write down what items you have and where they’re stored. Or you can put it in an Excel file that you can easily access through your phone or computer. This way, you’ll know what you have and where they’re located, so if you ever need them, you can easily find them. This inventory will help you avoid buying things you already have, so you’ll save money somehow.
You also can earn money from the things you own but no longer need. For instance, you may have items such as clothes, shoes, and bags that you no longer use or like but are still in good condition. You can resell these things online to earn some cash. If you’ve had a tough time financially this year due to the global pandemic, then selling your pre-loved stuff can give you a good start in 2021.
If you declutter before 2020 ends, you’ll be able to have a symbolic end to the year and have a fresher start in the next one. Tidying your home will help you improve your health and lifestyle in many ways.
