When you’re surrounded by clutter at home, your stress and anxiety levels can go through the roof. Whether it’s a drawer full of odds and ends or unworn clothes in your wardrobe that you’re not yet ready to part with, clutter can eventually take a toll on your health.
According to international author and simplicity expert Bronwen Sciortino, the cumulative effect of being around clutter can drain your brain and make it harder to focus. When constantly exposed to the mess, you may experience depression, fatigue and high levels of stress. Clutter can also affect your working memory and impact your ability to think clearly, making it difficult to make decisions, get things done and find what you need.
The solution is simple: by clearing some space in your home, you can create more mental space to get on with the things that matter. That’s where TAXIBOX comes in – a service that delivers a range of storage options right to your doorstep.
Follow this simple three-step process to eliminate all of that physical and mental clutter for good.
Step 1: Make a plan
Getting started is the hardest part, so it’s crucial to form a clear plan of attack to help make things more achievable. In this plan, you should also include a few ground rules, as inspired by decluttering expert Marie Kondo.
- Commit yourself to tidying up by imagining the lifestyle you want
- Compare your space to the one you want in your new lifestyle
- Try taking photos of your space and marking them up with improvements
- Be specific about what you want to tidy. For example, instead of making time to tidy the bathroom, you can make time to tidy the drawers in the bathroom vanity
- And, of course, ask yourself: what items spark joy and which items don’t.
Step 2: Start with the obvious clutter
The best place to start is with the mess that’s impossible to ignore. That’s usually what’s eating up most of your mental energy. For example, maybe when you go into the pantry, the clutter might prevent you from cooking. The lack of motivation to cook because of the pantry is an obvious sign of clutter, so make this the first stop in your decluttering mission.
Step 3: Categorise the clutter
You’ll probably find that a lot of the clutter in your home falls into sentimental and might-need-it-someday stuff. Categorising the clutter can help you understand what you want to keep and what needs to go into storage. Break it down into the following categories:
Need it daily – Anything you need daily should be kept within arm’s reach.
Need it regularly, but not daily – Items that you use regularly but not daily should be easily accessible in a cupboard.
Need a few times a year – These items can be kept at the back of the cupboard. For example, your roasting dish for Christmas.
Sentimental but not essential – Store away anything that you only use once a year, such as the Christmas tree, Easter dishware or special birthday decorations. If you’re short on space, consider TAXIBOX, a storage container that is brought directly to your home and then stored at a special facility for as long as you need.
Ready to sell – If there’s something you don’t need, but it’s still in good condition, put it in the ready-to-sell pile.
Ready to donate – Similarly, anything you think you can’t sell but is still in good enough condition to donate, can go in the donate pile.
Ready to discard – Finally, anything that doesn’t fit in any of these categories can go in the bin.
Next steps
Once you start to declutter, you’ll have the mental clarity to finally tackle all the things you couldn’t find the motivation to do before. Showerhead needs replacing? Kitchen grout needs patching? Garden in need of a tidy up? Watch how these tasks bring you joy when there’s less clutter.
Brought to you by TAXIBOX. TAXIBOX makes it easy to declutter your space and your mind. Make a booking online and let go of the stress.
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