Making decluttering your Indian home a habit!
The first pre-requisite to decluttering your Indian home is to somehow get to a stage of ENJOY DOING IT! Once you begin getting a kick out of your decluttering efforts, it slowly turns in a HABIT!
With many Indians now moving away from their native areas to bigger cities and acquiring apartments, the need to stay minimalistic is a must.
Spaces in our homes seem to run out in no time because of the excessive items we buy. The result of this habitual ACCUMULATION of items at home is clutter and chaos. This is NOT healthy in the long run for peace of mind.
That’s why we need to find ways to develop a HABIT OF DECLUTTERING to keep spaces of our Indian homes intact, happier, tidier, and spacious.
The habit of decluttering means that whenever it’s about ADDING ITEMS to your home, you must do whatever it takes to keep your home minimalistic.
To first step to developing a minimalistic attitude is to BELIEVE in a simple life. To go for quality and NOT the quantity of items!
To make de-cluttering a habit, you must NOT be overwhelmed or feel distressed about OWNING LESS!
The less you OWN, the better!
Decluttering your home meanes decluttering your life, and that’s indeed a big reward.
A. Is decluttered life a boon?
Yes! It is…having lesser possessions feels lighter, is inspiring and satisfying. Declutter itself is self-revealing in nature.
1. You have lesser stuff to clean
- Cleaning is a task in itself
- With lesser household goods at home, you get to clean lesser
- For example, if you have lesser items like tables and extra chairs on the floor, cleaning the floor also gets so much easier and faster
- Plus, the spaces in your home look much bigger
2. Less stuff to organize
- With lesser items at home, you can find them easily
- Nothing disappears on its own, and with more things, you have to jog to memory to hide or store those many things
- Sometimes we even forget what we bought, and find things in our home accidently
- So, with LESS items, your home is better organised and you get to remember them better
3. You get more calm
- Too many things are nauseating
- With less stuff around you, you feel calm and relaxed
- You will simply love a home that’s NOT over crowded, and is invitingly SPACIOUS
4. Your bank account gets happier
- With your impulse buying in control, you don’t splurge money incessantly
- Shopping on household items and personal items makes sure you get to keep the money in your bank account
- You bank accounts starts building up. Your HABIT OF SAVING money gets better! This further brings JOY!
5. Lesser debt with credit cards kept under check
- This helps you stay clear of CREDIT CARD DEBT
- You get to keep your money for unexpected emergencies, and for other occasions
- You can even spend more on recharging yourself by going for holidays and taking more tranquilising vacations
6.Your savings can be put to better investments
- With money saved, you gain financial freedom along with a clean and clutter-free home
- This brings ultimate happiness in the long run!
B. How to begin decluttering your home creatively
1. Take one step at a time
- Take one step at a time, and spend just about 5 minutes each day thinking about decluttering
2. Give away items you don’t need twice a month
- You could put a number around HOW MANY ITEMS you want to give away
- It could begin with 2 items, and gradually go up as you get more and more comfortable
- Each time you give away the item, also think about the day you bought it, and HOW YOU COULD HAVE AVOIDED BIUYING THE ITEM…and what went wrong!
3. Think DONATION, and fill a bagful of stuff with it to DONATE GENEROUSLY
- Get a bag, and undertake a fastfilling exercise of what all items you can actually live without having donated for a good cause
- You feel relaxed due to decluttering, and also find a satisfaction for ‘making a difference’ to someone who will USE your donated items
4. Pick clothes you don’t like, and DONATE THEM
- Identify items or clothes you don’t like
- The rule is simple you will never feel like wearing clothes you don’t like even if they are COSTLY . Not to think that you will wear them SOMEDAY. That SOMEDAY never comes
- Get rid of clothes you don’t like
- It will be very emancipating after you have DONATED THESE CLOTHES
5. Have a list of things you want to de-clutter
- Create a decluttering checklist. It helps!
6. Adopt a 5-5 approach every THREE months for household items
- The rule is simple: 5 items to throw away, 5 to donate
7. Do a roleplay to enter your own home as a CRITIQUE and identify unnecessary items
- Become a stranger to your own home. Pretend you are entering your own home for the first time, and look at everything around with a FRESH PAIR OF EYES!
- Critique everything in your own home CRITICISE THINGS YOU DON’T LIKE, YOU DON’T NEED Make a plan to get rid of them
8. Taking picture of “BEFORE” and “AFTER” a mock-decluttering exercise
- Choose different rooms of your home each week
- Do a mock exercise of how your room will look if you were to get rid of some items
- Rearrange things, and see them WITH and WITHOUT those items
- Click a BEFORE & AFTER PICTURE of your own home, and figure out how you would like your home to look!
- This calls for greater commitment, but the exercise of CLICKING PICS to take a decision about items in your home is truly very revealing and exhilarating
9. Ask help of family and friends to make suggestions for things they feel are useless
- Have an open mind to it
- Get your friends to suggest a few BIG ITEMS they feel should be thrown away!
- Take it with a pinch of salt, sleep over it, and TAKE ACTION Find reasons for the items you feel CAN be thrown away
10. Use a 4-classification technique
- Use the 4-classification technique of classifying each and every item under your roof
- Items that you can: 1. THROW, 2. GIVE, 3. KEEP, 4. RE-ARRANGE in your home
- Don’t skip any item even if you feel its super important for your home
- Sometimes it is an eye-opening experience just to see how many items we OWN, and get the right motivation to get rid of some of them. Especially, getting rid of items that are less USED or don’t have a utility for anyone anymore!
The freedom you get with decluttering is refreshing and rejuvenating besides helping you lead and balanced and relaxed life!
“The first step in crafting the life you want is to get rid of everything you don’t.”
– Joshua Becker
To know more about “7 Tips To Keep Your Apartment Clean And Organized:”. Click here!
