DECLUTTERING – GETTING STARTED

MOVING: HOW TO GET STARTED

In my moving/de-cluttering process so far, I have fortunately learnt some valuable practical things that I would love to share with you:

*Make sure you have enough strong cardboard boxes to begin with and that they are of good quality and being able to close and be stacked on top of each other, refuse sacks and plastic sacks with zips (from supermarkets) for your clothing. Boxes can be collected over years from department stores, or rented or bought from courier companies. Such boxes you can collect over time from wholesale stores, or rent or buy from certain currier companies. Also add decent plastic boxes with lids, bought from wholesale stores, especially if it will contain stuff you want to keep.The boxes should compliment each other (like all black/black and white/color). Make sure you also have enough small containers with lids.

*Label each box clearly with what the contents thereof are going to be, and also jot this down in a notebook.

*Start with sorting out the most difficult things, like your papers, and follow with say your kid’s toys.

*Start with one room per time, and IMPORTANT, empty the WHOLE room, leaving just the bare necessities, and only the furniture you’d like to keep. Keep only the things you can’t part with.

*Make sure you have a storage room or space available as soon as possible, so that you can pack all the packed boxes neatly in there.

*Now, first clean everything from the floors. (I believe things on floors ‘take away’ your energy). Then work from the top downwards, removing all the ornaments from the walls – including pictures, mirrors and objects attached to the ceiling, such as mobiles.

*Start simultaneously selling what you don’t see as valuable or pretty or meaningful to you, on-line, to friends or to antique shops. But remember that the value of things now would be a fraction of what you bough it for. Sold them on-line as a ‘garage sale’ or ‘closing down sale’. Keep remembering what you are raising the money for and discard of all rubbish immediately. It is important not to let these lie around and just increase the amount of clutter you have.

*At the same time, decide on paper what your vision for each room will be and what the function, or functions, of each room are going to be, and what would be the absolutely essentials and draw a picture of where what would stand. Page through home magazines or sites on-line like Pinterest.com for ideas.

*My tip: Every room needs a focal point. There should also be a balance between the items, for instance, if you place a black leather couch in the room, repeat either the leather, or the black, somewhere else in the room.

*When you’re moving or are just de-cluttering your house – make sure you choose such a beautiful new style that you will never be tempted to hoard again.

*O yes, and don’t forget your other responsibilities and priorities while you are de-cluttering. Work with a daily diary. If you get only a few boxes packed per day, you are slowly but surely moving towards your new clutter-free home, and one day will suddenly be amazed at the work you have achieved.!

OTHER IDEAS

If you don’t have the time or don’t have the inclination to do this, you don’t necessarily have to do it yourself. There are people in this world who love de-cluttering or cleaning. Pay someone to come and do it for you.- (although I prefer to do it by myself.!)

Begin with clearing out any clutter you have accumulated, tidying your place up and giving it a good spring clean. Any space you have cleared will need cleaning the same day, so the whole process requires considerable supplies of energy.

Do not attempt to rid the whole house of clutter in one go. Try cleaning your clutter in smaller amounts. Clearing out a single shelve or work surface one day may boost your energy enough for you to tackle a bit more the next day. Be kind to yourself when you decide how much to take on. You can always decide to do a bit more if you feel like it. Clutter clearing can make you feel so good that, once you started, you may just want to go on and on.

Start with something small like a kitchen or bedroom drawer, and complete the whole task of clearing out, tidying and getting rid of unwanted items before moving on to the next. Make an agreement with yourself that you will work through one space at a time and do not begin another space before you have completed the first one.

Or throw one thing out every day, even if this is just an old toothbrush.

Otherwise you can start de-cluttering and spring-cleaning room by room.

Start either with the space in your home that you believe is the most clutter-free or your main problem zones most visible to visitors.

Mark a date in your diary and make a commitment to start on that day. This way you will have a greater chance of achieving what you set out to do. You could even decide to clear the entirety of your space at a specified date. Decide in advance how much you will be able to do and allocate set amounts of time for the task for clearing either a whole room in your space, or a section within a particular room. It is better to think in terms of areas of a room, rather than the whole room. Build proper breaks into your schedule. Make this clean-up time an important priority, and do not allow yourself to be interrupted by the telephone or the doorbell.

Your ability, or inability, to stick to those schedules will tell you about your attitude to yourself, your level of commitment and, in broad terms, just how much of a problem or gift this whole process is for you. Make sure there is no clutter, only enough objects and colors to make the space interesting. The creation of order and clarity, balance and joy is the real motivation behind clearing clutter. There is no point in spending time and effort on creating wonderful color schemes and fine-tuning furniture placement, if your whole place is packed with clutter.

The way to clear clutter is very straight-forward and well tested. If possible, close the door behind you. This will heighten your awareness of what is really going on in the room. If something is in there that should not be, it will soon come to your attention if you are closeted in with it.

Sit quietly in the space for a few minutes, thinking about what you are going to do. Sit by the doorway or entrance of the room. Avoid sitting with your back to the door. Sit to the right of the door facing into the room and proceed from this position. Now begin to clear the clutter; starting with the very first thing you see as your eye travels anti-clockwise around the room.

You need to ask yourself:

*Does the item make me feel good? (At the moment)

*Do I enjoy owning it? (At the moment)

*Is it useful and creative for me? (At the moment)

(Since we are aiming to facilitate change and growth, we need to look at how things are affecting us RIGHT NOW, not how we felt about them in the past).

Be aware that what you are dealing with is a representation of yourself. The contents of each room will tell you a great deal about the person you are and the way you relate to the world. A Room absolutely crammed with objects is a reflection of one type of life; a room almost bare is a reflection of another. The contents of our bathroom, for example, will reveal our relationship to our body on a most intimate level. Exactly why do we have fifteen lipsticks, or four different types of toothpaste, or why do we keep so many bottles of hair conditioner or holding onto a mass of other items?

Some items we know are symptomatic of some emotional tie. If you feel negative about an item, pass it on.

Label the amount of boxes you want to start off with, including the things you are going to definitely move on. We will need to detach ourselves from any thought of benefiting from the things in the latter box. Some people delay the process in the hope of being able to sell some, if not all of the cleared items. The effort of selling then takes over, while the objects remain in a storage area indefinitely. Once we have decided to remove the clutter from our sight, we have made huge steps towards disentangling ourselves from it and all that it signifies. However, it is not enough to move it into the back of a cupboard or into the garage, we must recognize how it is holding us back and we must remove it completely. Recycling it by giving it away can be a good route for any items that you feel are too good to throw away.

Everyone works at the clearing process at a different speed. There is no prizes for speedy completion, because a complete clutter-free moment can never arrive. It is an ongoing process. If there are items you simply cannot decide whether or not to keep, set yourself a deadline for making a decision.

At any point in the clearing process, you may notice that your need to divert yourself from the job at hand has become more extreme. Do not become side-tracked, like suddenly thinking of popping something next door, or having a sudden desire to make coffee. This will almost certainly signal that you have spotted some major clutter. You may become tempted to go out and walk the dog, visit the gym, do some shopping or telephone a friend. This is the moment to look carefully at the items of clutter that are nearby. Our emotional resistance to dealing with certain items can be huge. For example, the bed we slept in with an ex-partner, the record collection that was our only friend during lonely teenage years, or the art items we bought as part of an unfulfilled ambition to become a great player.

Mothers who encourage grown-up children to keep childhood toys, partners who persuade you to keep the wedding dress their mother was married in, single people with a house full of items designed for one when they are now ready to share their lives, are all people who find it hard to throw things away. Recognize the reasons for keeping things that do not make you feel entirely comfortable – items that we cannot bear to discard, even though we know that hanging on to them is no longer right for us. Setting such objects aside and then beginning to deal with the emotions that surround them is powerful. Once we have looked at the emotional reasons for keeping these things, we can move to the point where we can let go of them altogether.

Clean with love. Do it as a kind of meditation. Do it not as a chore but honor yourself.

All your labeled boxes with things that is not absolutely essential for use in your home, can now be neatly stored in your garage or some other storage facility.

Your front entrance

Keep this area completely clear. If the first thing you see when you walk into your home is clutter or junk, your energy levels will drop before you have even crossed the threshold. Not a good idea to hang your coats or put your shoes inside the front door, or to put things near the front entrance to remind you to take out, or to use the front entrance as a place to put the old newspapers, magazines, tin cans and plastic bottles you are going to recycle – No. Recycling is fine, but it is not the best thing for you to set your eyes on when you arrive home – then having to step over the objects again and again. You just create struggle for yourself like this.

Behind doors

Doors which do not open fully, where there is so much clutter behind that that there is just a narrow gap for people to squeeze through, obstructs the flow of energy. Move anything which prevents doors from opening fully, and this includes clothes hanging from hooks behind doors.

Passageways

Keep all passageways free of clutter and junk.

Floor level

Get clutter specially off from the ground, as clutter at floor level constantly pulls your energy down and leads to depression.

Under beds

Clear piles of junk under your bed which will definitely influence the quality of your sleep.. If you have one of those beds that has drawers in it, the best thing you can keep in there is clean bed linen. For really high quality sleep, The best is to have almost nothing in your bedroom except the bed itself!

On top of cupboards

Do not stash clutter on top of cupboards or cram things on top of wardrobes or anywhere higher than eye-level, as it affects the quality of your sleep, and if that is the first thing you see when you wake up in the morning, you will tend to wake up sluggishly. Clutter stashed in your home higher than eye level, will have a generally oppressive effect.

Books

Books are difficult to get rid of as many people believe it is a sacrilege to throw them out. Bookcases might make an attractive feature, but large amount of books can create a feeling of heaviness in a room. If books sit and gather dust for years on end, unread and not referred to, they too constitute clutter and stuck energy and we should move them on. The world is changing fast and information becomes out of date. Should we require a fact in ten years time, the information will always be available elsewhere. We can always extract any information from magazines provided we file it immediately.

Clutter in the car

If you cleared the clutter in your home but are still driving round in rubbish, there is still work to do! Your car is like a small world onto itself. Do you cringe with embarrassment and apologize for the state of it whenever you give someone a lift? This is an energy drain, so get yourself a little hold-all for your bits and pieces, and clean the car regularly. You will feel much fresher. How many times a week do you think to yourself, ‘This car really could do with a clean out? Every time you think of it, your energy dips. You may do a lot of mileage and might sometimes spend as much as eight hours a day in the car. You start to live in the car, eating, writing, charging your mobile phone, doing your hair and makeup, keeping a toothbrush and hundreds of CD’s. Gradually your car becomes a mobile dustbin and, guess what? This is an energy drain, so get yourself a little holder – all for your bits and pieces, and clean the car regularly. You will feel much fresher. You know how good it feels when it has been freshly tidied out and valeted. Treat yourself!

Clutter in the office

Before I sit down to write, I clear my desk. It is psychologically far more uplifting to start work each morning with a clear desk. Other people feel they need to be surrounded with yesterday’s paraphernalia on order to be able to function. They feel at home among an array of possessions. This morning’s coffee cup, yesterday’s mail and someone else’s book are all essential ingredients of their work process. To them, to sit before an empty desk is to be deprived of a source of comfort and support.  But a tidy desk gives a sense of order, and can enable a person to think more clearly. On a practical level, it saves time because it enables people to find things quickly. Some people protest that they can never find anything if they put it away, or if they don’t leave it on their desk they may forget to do it. Is your desk barely visible beneath a mountain of paperwork? Many people work in a tiny space because the rest of the desk is taken up by piles of paperwork or pieces of equipment. You feel defeated before you even start work. Remember the old folk proverb, ‘A place for everything, and everything in it’s place’, so you can always find things when you want them. That way you can always work with a clear desk, which means you will be much more productive, creative and have job satisfaction.

MOVING TO A NEW HOME

The time most people’s clutter surfaces is when they move house, and one reason why moving house feels like such hard work is that in the process of packing you sort through all your things, and decide what you want to take with you and what you don’t, you have to deal with all the mental and emotional connections to each object, which can be exhausting. When we have had an unpleasant experience in our home, or when we move into a new house, the energy there can feel heavy. The Eastern people believes that our vibrations are important and we resonate at a level which is in harmony with the natural vibrations of the earth. And that often the vibrations which have caused the previous owner to behave in a certain way or adopt a certain way of life will have the same effect on us and we should take note of any problems which have befallen them before moving to a new home. That our senses also work at a vibrational level and we can improve their quality in our homes.We can lighten the energy to some extent by cleaning everywhere thoroughly.

Maintaining a clutter-free life

Having experienced life in an increasingly clutter-free zone, you will be keen to keep the clarity level rising.