How to Remove Clutter from Your Life

We spend our entire lives accumulating stuff. That’s right, not anything specific, just things. The complicated part isn’t acquiring things, it’s never throwing anything out. Now, there are some people out there who are packrats; people who keep everything no matter how useless or insignificant. There problem is deeper rooted than the rest of us, but if you’re like me, you tend to just have a clutter problem. You don’t think you’re keep a lot, but eventually you look around and you realize you are running out of space.

So how do you fix a growing epidemic in your own life? You start by removing clutter. Removing clutter is one of the best experiences you can have. It allows your mind and your heart to be cleaner, and if you feel like that is nonsense, then understand that it at least allows your house and your car to look a little nicer, and believe me, when your personal belongings are organized, then you’ll feel organized.

So if you want to get rid of the things you don’t need, then I’m here to help. So here’s a solid way to approach getting rid of the clutter in your life.

1. Your CD’s – With the advent of IPods and other digital music players, having CD’s is becoming less and less necessary. Unless you are a music enthusiast who loves the feel of a disc in her or his hand, then you don’t need them. With something like ITunes you can download a whole album and have the artwork as well. So here’s what you do, take your CD collection and pick your all time favorite artist, then take out their CD’s and keep them if you so choose. Everything else must go. Take them to the local CD exchange store and you’ll probably be able to get a few dollars for you stuff.

2. Your Clothes – Please do not fall into the hopeless and endless trap of “I’ll fit into this one day.” You won’t and even if you do, you’ll probably want newer clothes to show it off. So here is what you’re going to do: Go into your closet and if you haven’t worn it in a year, toss it. If you only wore it once and it was only around the house, toss it. Take those clothes and donate them to the local good will and you’ll be able to get a tax write off on those clothes. Trust me, your closet should be filled with stuff you like to wear, not stuff you think about wearing.

3. Books – Most of us have books all over our house that we have either read or we haven’t picked up since we bought it. First off, save yourself some money and get a library card, but if you aren’t willing to do that, just save the books that really moved you. If you haven’t read them, then make it a game for yourself. Each time you read one, get rid of it. You’ll feel a sense of accomplishment as you watch the space on your book case opening up. But don’t just toss those books in the trash. Donate them to the library or good will, or even a local high school. Trust me, they’ll appreciate it and once again; it’s a tax write off.

4. Mail – This is perhaps the biggest culprit of clutter. It piles up and you never look through it. To reduce that clutter is not that hard. Just separate the mail into piles of stuff to keep, stuff to shred, and stuff to throw away. And if you need to keep, put it somewhere. If you could do this everyday, it would take you two minutes and you would never have this problem. Just do it and you’ll never have to think about this again.

5. Food – Don’t pretend like your cupboards aren’t filled with stuff you haven’t looked at in months. First, if you’re going to go shopping, buy food you will actually use. So scour your kitchen and remove things that have expired and remove anything that you can’t remember why you bought it in the first place. You can find a use for that space and it doesn’t have to be filled with food that is only going to go bad.

So stop letting the clutter pile up in your life. Follow these tips to clean up the clutter that has been haunting you for months. A clutter free life is a clutter free mind. Happy cleaning.