5 Strong Motivating Reasons to Get Rid of Your Clutter
As you might imagine, as a professional organizer, one of the things my clients hire me for is to help them edit the things they have collected and then organize what remains. They often refer to their stuff as clutter. By the time they contact me, they are highly motivated to release the excess (as in they want it gone yesterday.) I’ve noticed that certain motivators make the editing process easier and faster. In recent months, the five motivators described below are the ones I’ve encountered most frequently.
There are a few common threads, which make these motivators especially effective. Each motivator possesses a clear “why.” This clarity makes decision-making easier to determine which things they want or no longer want in their life. Secondly, these five motivators have deadlines, which add a time pressure or incentive to be more decisive and speedy in the decluttering process. Lastly, they all involve a significant change. While there might be some fear involved in change, there can also be excitement and opportunity, which serves as a great driver.
5 Strong Motivators For Releasing Your Clutter
1. Moving– When you’re preparing to move, letting go of the unessential, enables you to start with a clean slate in your next place. Whether you’re downsizing, upsizing, or right sizing, the moving incentive works beautifully for getting you to evaluate your belongings and excess clutter. For example, if you’re moving to a home with 50% less space, you can use that editing formula as a guide and reduce your current possessions by half. Moving, even if to a larger space, still provides a great opportunity to evaluate, edit and decide which things have meaning and which do not.
2. Cycling– For those of you that have children leaving for college, in college, or post college, you’re in the midst of this revolving door time. I think of this phenomenon as revolving door empty nesters, where our kids cycle frequently between living home and away. These transitions can be huge motivators for letting go, editing, and decluttering. These periods of time are excellent for encouraging our children to decide what should remain or go from their childhood days. They are transitioning to adulthood and to becoming more independent. It’s also a great time for parents to imagine this new stage. While some parents like to keep their kids’ rooms in tact, others like to renovate or completely change the room’s use. Kids’ rooms might be converted to guest rooms or home offices.
3. Surprising– We’ve seen this more frequently in the last several years; Mother Nature has dealt us some not-so-great weather surprises. We’ve had floods, hurricanes, heavy snows, and high winds. Many of our homes have survived without experiencing loss of power or damage. However, due to the extreme weather, many more have experienced damage to our homes and possessions. As a result, major decluttering was necessary in order to make repairs or because our possessions were not salvageable. Having to face these damages also provided an opening to re-evaluate, which things were most meaningful and which things were not. The weather surprises forced us to declutter.
4. Ending– Different than moving, clearing out a home after a loved one has died is another strong motivator to let go of clutter. In fact, it may be a time to let go of more than just clutter. It might involve releasing an entire lifetime of collected things. The pressure to clear out a home increases when you’re trying to sell it quickly. A home no one lives in can easily become a financial drain. So while clearing out a deceased loved ones home is a highly emotional process, decisions about letting go can become clearer in this situation. Giving your loved ones things safe passage is especially important. Safe passage means that you find new homes for those things you let go of that will benefit or be appreciated by the receiver of them.
5. Stabilizing– We can experience unanticipated medical or mental health issues that quickly requires the need for a calmer, uncluttered space. Clutter can take on a draining, negative energy, especially if a person has a low clutter tolerance. For example, if an individual has compromised mobility due to a medical condition, combined with excess household clutter, this can potentially cause harm. The motivation to declutter increases rapidly when you consider it in the context of certain medical concerns. Stabilizing a space to create a safe, peaceful environment is a huge motivator.
Have you struggled with letting go of clutter? What motivates you to release those things that are no longer wanted? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Come join the conversation!
