#23 What Can I Do Now? De-clutter One Space

De-cluttering one space at a time is so incredibly rewarding. When I say one space, I don’t mean an entire room. I mean one drawer, one shelf, or one section of the closet. If it leads to another—great! Doing one small space at a time keeps me from being overwhelmed about the process.

I keep master organizer, Peter Walsh in my head as I choose what to keep, sell, donate, and trash. I just watched a short video on YouTube today where he reminded the person, “This is not your dad” as the women went through boxes of stuff from her dad’s apartment that had been in her house for four years. When she was done, she got to honor her dad, without weighing down her life with just a bunch of his stuff. It’s not healthy to hold on to so much that it weighs us down. Our families who passed wouldn’t want that for us. Walsh suggests taking pictures and doing something special with the pictures. I love that.

I love to live simply, but I still find myself holding onto stuff that I never use. It all just takes up space. I don’t feel good with all the clutter around me, so I’ve decided to simply pick a space and just work through it.

I love the way an organized space looks, and I automatically feel a sense of peace after I’ve organized a space. Now, I’m a creative by nature, and my space can turn into organized chaos in no time flat. I’ve stopped beating myself up over this, because honestly, I love the process of de-cluttering. There is something about the experience of it. I don’t think I’d want have my mind focused on keeping things organized all the time. I embrace who I am, but I know myself enough to know that when the clutter starts piling up, I have something to look at inside me.

I’ve written about the mental clutter in this series before. This is just taking another step in the journey of my life. I’ve learned to embrace the process. De-cluttering is the organizing of our physical and emotional worlds. They work together. One isn’t messy without the other.