Dealing With Clutter: The Psychological Lessons

This is a list of 5 lessons that are important to keep in mind when decluttering your home, office, workspace, or any other area.

1. Don’t get stressed. It’s natural to get cluttered from time to time. Just deal with it.

2. Start small. Pick an area of your home — a closet, a cupboard, your garage workbench, your car—and spend ten minutes decluttering it. Separate all of the items there into keep, donate, and get-rid-of piles.

3. Ignore deep-seated fears of losing your possessions. Remember that your brain is telling you to keep things regardless of whether it makes sense. Marketers use this as a shopping gimmick, but that doesn’t mean that we need them.

4. Digital clutter is a real thing. Keep your digital life organized by using the same principles as you would with physical clutter.

5. Managing disorderliness is good for health. It reduces your stress, prevents feeling guilty about your cleanliness, and keeps your brain from getting overloaded by unhelpful things.

Get out there and do it! Start small, be consistent about it, and you’ll make a difference.