Clutter costs money! How?

1) Clutter is confusing. You don’t know what you have— so you don’t know what to buy and what not to buy.
2) Clutter makes you inefficient. Waste costs money.
3) Clutter causes stress. Stress makes you do stupid stuff, like buy more crap (clutter) you don’t need.

There are more, but that’s enough. Zen Habits has some tips for removing clutter from your life. Here are a few that we liked:

• Donate stuff you’re decluttering, so you don’t feel bad about wasting it.
• Start at the corner by the door and move your way around the room, doing the superficial stuff first – surfaces, empty the bin etc. Repeat, but do more the 2nd time around – ie. open the cupboards.

• Use the “one in, two out” rule. The rule: whenever you bring in an item, you have to throw away two other items. First you cheat, by throwing out two pieces of paper, but soon you will have to move to big stuff.

• The One-Year Box. Take all your items that you unsure about getting rid of (e.g. “I might need this someday…”), put them in a box, seal it and date it for 1 year in the future. When the date comes, and you still didn’t need to open it to get anything, donate the box WITHOUT OPENING IT. You probably won’t even remember what there was in the box.

15 Great Decluttering Tips [Zen Habits]
(Photo:sindesign)

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