The Real Importance of Clearing the Clutter

Your home is your haven. It is a reflection of you, and should be an environment where you are able to relax and enjoy your space. The real importance of clearing the clutter you may have in your home is it helps you regain control of your life in other ways.

Take a look around you. How does your home feel to you? Do you love coming home? Do you feel a sense of peace and calm and safety when you enter? Or are you ashamed, so overwhelmed with the clutter and disorganization that you never want anyone else to see it? Do you get the feeling that somehow you are not in control of more than your home -- you are not in control of your life.

Clutter can cause depression, and depression can have other effects. It can cause you to isolate yourself from friends. It can cause you to overeat and gain weight. It can affect your family relationships. So, don't you think, if this applies to you, that it is time. Time to unclutter your life. Time to let go of clutter in your space. If you cannot control the space around you, then you will not be able to control the other aspects of your life.

Think of it this way. Clutter is an obstacle. If you've read anything about Feng Shui, you know that clutter can impede the flow of energy in your home. This includes preventing the entry and movement of good energy as well as keeping negative energy hanging around. You can feel that negative energy when you are surrounded by clutter, disorganization and unfinished projects.

So, how can you start clearing the clutter from your spaces? Here are four steps to start on your journey to letting go of clutter.

1. Define the purpose of each room or space in your home. Ask yourself what you want from that room. Is it a calm place to relax? Is it an organized kitchen where you love to cook nourishing meals? Is it an efficient home office where you can work comfortably? Do you want a warm and romantic bedroom?

2. Now identify why it's not working. Could it be you are short of storage space? Is your bedroom closet too small? Identify why you hang onto things - is it because you may need it 'someday', or because you just might wear it? Could you rearrange the furniture to gain space? Is there a clutter of old magazines, heaps of unfiled and unsorted mail, or piles of dirty laundry?

3. Work with one room or one area at a time. Just the thought of clearing the clutter from a whole home can be overwhelming. Instead, start small, one area or room at a time, and start with the most visible clutter. Out-in-the-open piles of stuff are easy targets for removal or organizing.

4. When the obvious clutter has been dealt with, then take time to sort through the hidden piles. Get into those drawers, closets and pantries, one by one, and keep only the stuff that is useful and that you actually do use. If it is useful, but not something you use (like that stash of wool from when you thought you might take up knitting) then let go of it. Someone else may actually use it. It's just clutter.

As your home progresses to a clutter-free state, you will find your life is changing too. You will think more clearly, have more energy, and look forward in anticipation to new activities and relationships.

Clutter getting you down? Nicki Goff is an experienced coach who can help you reduce clutter in your home or workspace. Learn more about how you can take control of the stuff in your home and your life with her free email newsletter and the other resources available on her website, DeclutterToday.com.

Clutter Tips - Clear Your Clutter at Lightning Speed

You don't know how it happened, but it happened. One day your good friend visits your home and points out that you are in a big pool of clutter at home. You feel embarrassed. You also realize that, off late you have been spending more time on searching things. You don't know where you kept or you remember where you kept but it is not there when you are looking for it.

You are in a big mess and you need to definitely come out of this. Piles of old magazines, papers, junks stuffed everywhere and you have not touched them for ages now you do not even know where they came from. It does not matter where it came from, but you should know where it should go, how it should go.

Do not spend too much time on planning how to clear your clutter, just decide and that's it.

Keep aside your procrastination attitude, and just jump into your clutter terminating activity. Allocate two or three days continuous days so that you can do it at a stretch and finish it off.
Do not get distracted or interrupted, keep aside all your distractions, phone calls, favorite television program and everything. Please some good music at the back ground which can act as a motivational factor for your activity.
Pickup one room which to your opinion is cluttered the most. Start from one corner of that room and once that is completed to the next corner.
Take some tough decision on every item you pickup. Every item you pickup check if they are used in the last 1 year or so. If they are used are they going to be used in future? If yes then you just wipe the dust off and retain in the place where you picked up from.
If the item is not something which you used in the last 1 year, you need to see if that can be gifted, donated or thrown away. Your decision should be quick, do not keep debating mentally on this, and compromising it may be useful sometime in future.
Just work fast, show some internal urgency and it is simple. Think your best friend is visiting your house tomorrow and your house need to be clean and tidy.
Group up all the similar things together. You will see that the items are left around in different places. If you are organizing a bedroom, see to it your cosmetic items are together, inside the cloth closet things are together. Grouping similar things and keeping itself is one of the best ways in organizing things.
Give breaks when you are doing this activity. After few hours you will feel tired but never wind up, instead take a break, relax yourself and come back to continue. If you lose the momentum by doing it after few days, you will never be able to complete this task.

Once you have completed the entire organizing activity, take photograph of the entire room, and paste it behind the door of the room. Regularly observe whether the room is getting cluttered again. Do a monthly check comparing to the photograph with you had taken, if the room is in the same condition as the photograph looks, if not it is time for de-cluttering.

Madhan is a Clutter Management expert. For more great information on tips on decluttering, visit http://www.clearyourclutters.com.

Clear Your Clutter For Good - Use These Three Simple Magic Questions

In all the years I have been working with people who are desperate to get organized, I am always amazed at just how many of them believe they just can't let go of their stuff.

Well, I am here to tell you: it doesn't have to be that hard.

If you're ready to get organized, you can make a great start by asking three simple questions. Like "Open Sesame," these three questions will unclutter your home - almost like magic!

Question 1: "Do I love this?"

Are you surrounded by objects that you don't love? Like? Or maybe you even dislike them?

Your house reflects you - and no one else. Surround yourself with art, objects, clothes, furniture and other décor that speaks to who you really are - and not what Aunt Susie gave you fifteen years ago.

Maybe a lava lamp spoke to you 20 years. Does it still reflect who you are? If not, out it goes!

Question 2: "Do I use this?"

If I had a dollar for every bread machine I find in a garage...

If I had a quarter for every record album I find in a basement...

If had a dime for every article of clothing that is just five pounds away...

You get my drift. If you haven't used something in year, chances are you will never use it. It's the 80/20 rule - we use 20% of what we own. If you don't use it, it's just clutter. Out it goes!

Question 3: "Do I need this?"

This is where things can get sticky, especially with guys. Electronic cables, old computer parts, tools, thousands of screws & nails...Hey, I might need that someday!

Sorry, bud. Doesn't count. "Do I need this?" means, it's summer and I'm going to need that winter coat. It doesn't mean, "this may come in handy, someday." That's what hardware stores are for. Keep a moderate supply of potentially useful items and get rid of the rest. Out it goes!

No matter how convinced you are that you can't let go of clutter, I'm here to tell you that it is possible. Just ask yourself the three magic questions as detailed above. Before long, the level of stuff you don't love, need or use will slowly disappear, leaving you the space to live in a home that is truly yours.

Interested in more ways to clear clutter and gain control of your environment? Get great tips and motivating messages by subscribing to the Empty Your Nest newsletter at [http://www.emptyyournest.com]

Clear Your Clutter and Clear Your Mind

De-cluttering is such a popular idea that there is even a "De-Cluttering Week" every year in October. But often it is just that - an idea - and the thought of getting round to sorting out our possessions and clearing out anything that we don't need or want any longer is often too daunting a task for us to know where to begin.

But why do we all have so much clutter in the first place? Well, part of the reason is that we are a nation of shoppers. Shopping, which used to be a necessity for items we needed, is now one of the nation's favourite pastimes. And stores are so good at tempting us to buy that we often return home with things we haven't really got room for. Add to that the instinctive human desire to hoard and very soon our houses start to fill up. Lofts and garages become extended storage space that we fill with items we often forget we even own.

What is de-cluttering?

It is simply getting rid of anything that we no longer need. Apart from seasonal clothes and seasonal items such as Christmas decorations or gardening equipment, anything that is not regularly used or on display is potential clutter. Other exceptions are photographs, CDs/DVDs and books, all of which may not be used or viewed frequently but which form a collection of memories and cultural enjoyments. De-cluttering is not about throwing out our memories but about throwing out everyday items that are no longer useful. So if we know what our clutter is, why is it so hard to de-clutter?

The benefits of de-cluttering

It is often only when people are moving house that they are forced into sorting out everything they own. But why wait until you are moving? Clearing space in your home can help create a peaceful environment that will calm your mind after a busy day. And if your home is organised and clutter-free then that will lead to an organised, clutter-free mind that will view daily troubles in a clearer, more serene way.

Your home is after all a place of sanctuary from the world outside and having control over your private space can be the first step to having control over your life. But in order to embark on the arduous task of de-cluttering we need to feel motivated that a clutter-free home will be worth all the effort. If you cannot appreciate the advantages of de-cluttering then you will never do it. We also need to understand that de-cluttering is absolutely not about throwing away items with any sentimental value, however small, but it is about knowing the difference between clutter and things with sentimental value. Many people never embark on de-cluttering because they don't understand this difference but there are options such as self storage units if you really can't bear to part with some possessions but no longer have room in your home for them.

The 4 main advantages are:

A calm, organised living space will lead to a calm, organised life.
The satisfaction of supporting a charity close to your heart
Making money from selling your unwanted goods
Recycling and doing your bit for the environment

Avoid excuses

Once you have convinced yourself of the benefits of de-cluttering and motivated yourself to embark on the task, watch out for the typical excuses we all make to ourselves for not assigning an item to the clutter pile:

1. You might need it at a later date- in a cluttered home, you are unlikely to find the item at the point when you need it so just get rid of it now or put it into a self storage unit.

2. It was a present from someone you are fond of- they will probably never notice it has gone so don't hang on to it to avoid hurting their feelings.

3. You hope an item will appreciate in value- if you genuinely think it might then consider a self storage facility (many of which have excellent security for valuable items).

4. It reminds you of a particular person or place- whilst de-cluttering is not about throwing away precious memories, it is about clearing out items with little significance in your life now. Keep photos of the person or place if you wish to relive the moment.

5. I will still have too much stuff even once I have cleared out the things I no longer want- cheap self storage is simple to arrange and has easy access whenever you want to retrieve an item.

Michelle Symonds is an SEO Consultant experienced in all aspects of both on-site and off-site SEO to promote companies and their websites throughout the internet.

She has written and published articles on a range of topics including Contemporary Art, IT Software Services, Asbestos Issues, Interior Design, Self Storage and Project Management.

If you are planning to de-clutter your home because you are moving, then check out the author's Guide to Moving House.

How to Sort Your Clutter

Clutter happens, nobody plans for it to happen, and yet before you know it everywhere you look is clutter. You try to ignore it. You try to hide it. But no matter what you do you can't deny that your house is being taken over by clutter. Here are few tips on how you can sort your clutter and get your house back.

Set The Clock: When you first get started sorting your clutter it can feel overwhelming. The best way to overcome that feeling is to set a time limit. Set your kitchen timer for 15 minutes and get to work. Start at one corner of a room and stay focused and working for the full 15 minutes. When the timer goes off stop and give yourself a break. Set a time to come back to the room at a later date and walk away. You accomplished something, good for you!

Throw, File, Put Away: Stuff starts to become clutter when we don't know what to do with it. When you start to sort through your clutter it's time to decide what to do with it. You aren't allowed to put any item into a "later" bin. It must fall into one of these three categories: Throw away, File, Put Away.

If you have an item that is broke, no longer useful, or you haven't used in over a year, throw it out. You don't need it anymore. For paperwork you need to keep for personal or business reason but don't need everyday set up a file box and file it away and out of sight. For day to day items that are laying around find a place for it to be put away and get in the habit of putting there every time after you use it.

Attack The Hotspots: Every house has hotspots. They are the places where you empty out your pockets, drop your mail, and throw your keys. These are the places that catch all the day to day stuff that go with life. Don't let your hotspots become overrun with clutter. Instead of just dumping your stuff somewhere to become clutter, take a little time to sort it. A small basket, decorative shelf with hooks, and use it to sort that small pocket stuff. It'll keep it from looking cluttered and the little extra effort will help you get out the door faster the next morning.

These are only a few tips you can use to start sorting your clutter. While these steps are a great place to start you will need to get serious about sorting your clutter to truly regain your house and enjoy the rewards. Here's to you and your determination to reclaim your house and to getting your clutter sorted. Keep going!

Congratulations on working to sort out your clutter. Find more tips to help you sort your clutter and regain your house at http://www.squidoo.com/controlling_household_clutter.

Clear Your Clutter - 3 Simple Strategies to Clear Your Clutter Fast

Why do you need to clear your clutter? What is the hidden secret of de-cluttering and keeping ones home organized? It is nothing but handling the clutter once for all and thereafter keeping it under control. Listed below are three easy strategies to just get rid of clutter and maintain the same status once for all.

1. Plan your de-cluttering program, but never get overwhelmed: Have you not cleared your home or something like deep cleaning quite recently? Then you may wonder how to start the work or naturally be procrastinating to start your de-cluttering exercise. It is not that difficult. You have to start one room or one area of the room, and should only concentrate on only organizing that area of your room. Classic example is if your closet is a total mess, you can start by pulling out all the things from inside. Stay focused on the job what you are doing, because de-cluttering is something which one can easily stop and postpone for next day, week or even next month. You can divide your clutter into basically three types, items which need to be kept, items which need to be donated, and items which need to be thrown away. Items which are not used so much can be gifted or donated to people who deserve it. By doing this you can actually remove substantial amount of clutter. If there are little high value items which are no longer required by you, which can be easily sold, then you can actually sell them through eBay and make a little extra cash.
2. Plan and get Organizers to Get Rid of Clutter: You may be surprised to note that one side I am asking you to de-clutter and remove things from your house, and on the other side asking to get organizer. This organizer is something which you require to enhance your efficiency in managing or organizing your home. Like adding a cupboard to add additional space to keep your stuffs. Once you get rid of your clutter, you need to ensure that you organize it so as to make your life more productive and meaningful. If you do not have place to put your used cloths in your bedroom, you can buy a basket which can be kept in the corner of the room. This is a type of organizer which can improve the efficiency.
3. Maintain and continue to keep your home free of clutter: You have completed an exhaustive exercise by cleaning room after room. You have cleaned your bedroom, kitchen, your drawers, storage space and they are now organized and are clean. You now need to keep this clutter free forever. How do you do that? You should close the clutter at the door. Before adding any new item to your home, you need to decide whether and ask yourself if this item is definitely required. Do your de-cluttering exercise then and there. If you receive a mail or a brochure, read it and see to it you action it immediately. If possible also ensure that after you absorb the content you trash the same.

It only requires a little discipline but the outcome of the effort is worth. So next time you want to clean your home, you can take an extra step and follow the mentioned points to make your de-cluttering exercise fast and fruitful.

Madhan is a Clutter Management expert. For more great information on clear your clutter, and get FREE Newsletter, Please visit http://www.clearyourclutters.com.

Clear Your Clutter For the New Year With Feng Shui

Feng Shui believes that something new can come into our lives only when we create the space for it. Similarly, when we re-energise our living space we can usher in new energy, in turn, abundance, prosperity and peace to last through the year. Clutter is stuck energy affecting both our minds and our bodies. It doesn't allow for the energy to flow naturally. A component of Feng Shui that is essential to releasing the positive chi energies in your home. De clutter clutter is removing the stale energy and replacing it with new energy.

Clearing the clutter can release the positive energy into your home giving you energy, health and the ability to achieve the ultimate relaxation. Lending peace and harmony to your home. Once you have cleared the clutter you will clear your mind and find that you can focus and find what you need when you need it. It can be very liberating. If you are skeptical pick a room any room and complete the entire process and you will feel like a huge weight has been lifted off your shoulders. You will find the room will energize you and make you feel amazing. Cleansing the room according to the Feng Shui Masters, they advise the following each New Year. Clearing the energy blocks and making way for the positive changes for the New Year.

They suggest giving away everything you don't use including clothing, furniture and appliances taking up space and stealing our positive energy. Some other tips to usher in abundance, luck and prosperity in 2009 and beyond are: De-clutter. Clutter is the biggest enemy to the flow of energy. Cleanse the air. Mop the floor with water mixed with a small quantity of rock salt, burn incense sticks or aroma candles. Soak the sun's energy. If you have crystals or semi-precious stones, wash them in water, with some rock salt added, and expose them to bright sunlight to imbibe the energy. Switch on warmth, love and joy. Turn on bright lights in the foyer and living room during the new year to activate 'yang' or positive energy.

If you are looking for more information on Feng Shui visit my site at http://fengshuide.com