How to Clear the Clutter

Do you feel so attached to material objects that you just can't bring yourself to get rid of them? Is your house becoming so full of stuff that you haven't seen the floor/shelf/closet/storage space in months or even years? Here are a few simple things to do to de-clutter and be happier for it.

First, find three large boxes. Label one 'Donate', one 'Keep' and one 'Trash'. Pick a room or space and plan at least an hour to work on it. Start picking up things, looking through boxes, peeking through books, etc. and ask yourself a few questions:

1. When was the last time I used this?
2. When will I use this again?
3. Could someone else make better use of this sooner that I can make use of it?
4. Why do I really need this? Do I really need this?

Ask yourself those questions for each item you pick up. If you have a large collection of books that you haven't read for large amounts of time and don't plan on reading in the near future: take them to a buy/sell/trade bookstore, trade them for new books on sites like http://www.paperbackswap.com, or donate them to a non-profit organization or a library. (You can create a box specifically for this task if there are more than a few of them; if there are only a few, put them in the donate box.) For clothing, go through every single article and ask yourself when the last time you wore it was, and when you will wear it again. If you like to store seasonal clothes (for example, putting sweaters away in the spring to wear again in the fall/winter), fold them neatly and put them in a box or bag to put into storage when you're all done. For everything else, put it in one of the three boxes after you've spent a satisfactory amount of time deliberating over it. I am a firm believer in spending plenty of time doing this sort of thing; if you don't, it could be a very traumatic experience. Just don't justify keeping things you really don't need or that will take up space for a year or more before it's used.