3 Solutions for Clutter Excuses

by contributing writer Angie

Clutter has a way of building up around our homes.  Sometimes it appears in forms that we easily recognize as clutter, such as piles of papers.  Other times, however, it appears as things we once loved but don’t use anymore or things we feel obligated to keep.  Keeping clutter around our homes becomes easy because we make excuses for why we can’t get rid of it.

Let’s look at some of those reasons we keep our homes cluttered and look toward solutions for our excuses.

We love books, so we have them all over the house.

Books really are pretty fabulous.  In fact, it’s hard to think of books as clutter.  However, if you have full bookshelves and stacks of books all over the place, they might be clutter in your home.  When I found that there were books in every nook and cranny, as well as multiple bookshelves that were crammed with books, I needed a solution.

While the solution you may want is to get another bookshelf, a great start is to first go through all of your books.  You might take on this task a little at a time.  I did it all in one afternoon because I didn’t want the mess to take over.

Although we thought we still loved all of our books, we found almost 200 books that we no longer needed or wanted.  Not only did we gain space for the books that hadn’t been able to fit on the bookshelf, but we also had the pleasure of knowing that our local library would sell them as part of their fundraising book sale.

That item we never use was too expensive.

This is a problem that a lot of people encounter.  It might be that recumbent stationary bike that now has clothes draped on it, or perhaps it’s a fancy pressure cooker that you wanted to use, but it has sat in a cabinet since the day you purchased it four years ago.  Most people don’t like to waste money, and as long as they still have the items, they think they might use them one day.

Be honest with yourself.  Are you going to use that item that you’re holding on to just because you feel bad that it cost too much?  If you don’t think you’ll use it, you could try to recoup some of the money by selling it somewhere like Craig’s List or Ebay.  If you don’t want to venture into those types of venues, you might even find a buyer from among local friends by posting a picture on Facebook.  If you finally decide that you just need to get it out of your house, consider donating the item.

I’ll go through all of those papers later.

Paper clutter builds up so easily.  What’s worse is that having a pile of paper clutter tends to invite more paper to join the pile.  It just gets easier and easier to drop mail, school papers, and anything else in the same spot.

One of the very best solutions for this excuse is to deal with each paper one time.  As soon as you get it in your hands, make a decision about what to do with it.  If this isn’t possible, then you should try to spend just ten minutes a day working on any paper piles that have formed during the day.

What are your solutions for clutter excuses?

photo by _hlian

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