Benefits of Decluttering One’s Living Space
When clutter creates stress and distracts from organising thoughts, it saps time and energy and diminishes self-efficacy. Decluttering and organising brings forth an ambient, aesthetically pleasing environment that can help enhance self-concept and offers the serenity that can create sleep.
Decluttering should be ruthless: for every one thing brought in, one must go out. This will help matters of corralling to be easier, and the ease of these chores will again increase productivity and efficiency.
Reduces Stress
While it sometimes seems like a small pile of junk hidden in the back of your closet isn’t much to stress about, just think about all the little things that clog your home. This increases your anxiety and makes it more difficult to find things. Clutter is also distracting and can drive you to put off doing work (which then adds more stress), avoid people (which then makes you even more overwhelmed), or eat junk food to comfort yourself (which then adds to your health problems).
This is performing compulsive tasks with the aim of obtaining a feeling of well-being that is evoked or motivated by your awareness of your troubles. So, if people are feeling stressed or overwhelmed, one of the more soothing ways for them to de-stress is to return home and clean the place up and have a good declutter. It’s a great way to maintain a sense of efficacy, agency and self-worth, to make oneself feel productive.
Clearance reduces other health problems as well. For instance, less clutter means less risk of allergies and asthma via the dust, moulds and mildew that are more common in cluttered spaces. And less clutter around the home means cooking dinner without putting it off, or sleeping deeply instead of suffering from insomnia. Less clutter makes life healthier. Cooking more and sleeping better are just the start of developing a whole raft of healthier living habits. A cleaner environment is unattractive to micro-organisms, reducing the probability of picking up an illness because everything is tidy. In terms of health, clearance promotes the implicit personal hygiene behaviours that keep us well. It reinforces positive health behaviours. Your body reacts very favourably to more space: a boost of immunity, a gain in self-efficacy, and being less vulnerable to stress.
Boosts Self-Esteem
Decluttering can improve self-esteem because it allows you to develop competence and feelings of home and life pride – even though it can be hard to accomplish. As a person who also does hoarding, I know how difficult removing articles from your life can seem when you’ve built a collection over the course of more than two decades. Just begin as slowly and methodically as you’re able, and maintain lists that identify areas to address. Then check them off one by one, enabling you to prioritise them.
Now that the space is tidy and easy to direct your attention, you will probably be more likely to invite family members over, likely strengthening relationships. Similarly, it makes you more productive – you can quickly locate tools and information needed to do your job without having to search through a clutter of stuff.
One commonly used technique for tidying up is the KonMari method, in which you declutter by category, like clothing or papers, rather than room to room. You sort your clothing, books, paper, komono (miscellaneous items) and sentimental items into separation bins. Then, take every item in your hand in turn and see if it sparks joy. Anything that does, you keep; everything else is tossed.
Encourages Creativity
A disorderly environment might even hinder creativity: researchers have found neat and orderly environments facilitate elaboration of creative ideas, and messy environments impede creativity. Keeping one’s desk tidy can also encourage creativity by facilitating focus. Studies show that decluttering can lead to a perceived sense of control, and feelings of control facilitate attention and performance.
Enhances Hobby Engagement
Moreover, keeping a home tidy can also motivate people to pursue or continue studies and hobbies because there would be less distractions. Furthermore, having less clutter at home makes it easier to prepare for natural calamities such as floods or earthquakes by ensuring that essential supplies are placed where they can be easily accessed.
By sorting, you get to make choices about what you want or don’t want to pursue, discover hidden interests and values and learn new ways to live intentionally. You’re able to make room for new passions and life goals. When you pick and choose what to keep, sell, donate and toss, you build decision-making muscles that can transfer to other arenas of life.
Increases Focus
Either a pile of papers or the mess on your work table can prove to be too distracting, evenreduce productivity. Cleaning up will save you time and allow you to work productively.
It can also bring a sharper focus of mind, freeing you from things that clutter or otherwise annoy, helping you to refocus on what is important in your life, opening up more space for the things that matter most to you – your passions, projects, achievements.
These same focus, decision-making and general discipline skills could help you to get a new career position, promote your business, or get those brilliant ideas for writing or other ‘just for fun’ creative projects down on paper. The sense of inner calm and satisfaction you feel after cleaning and organising could help you to sleep better through a long and relaxed night’s rest. Perhaps our semi-annual declutter could become a quarterly one, seasonal, or after the holidays when we have lots of extra ‘stuff’? I’m sure my house wouldn’t become so cluttered.
