Three Things to Consider When You Are Struggling to Declutter

Look around you. Is there a lot of stuff you don’t need? Should you declutter?

In a few days, I will move house for the 10th time. The last seven times I have been living abroad. Despite my practice, I did this wrong plenty of times.

My biggest mistake? I don’t declutter enough.

Accept the cost of losing things.

I always struggle to get rid of things.

It took time, energy, or money to acquire anything, and our aversion to loss makes it hard to throw things away. As students, we often struggle to throw things away, but we cannot keep everything in life: there are many ways to purge our stuff: sell, gift, donate or recycle.

Consider the cost of keeping stuff.

We don’t think about It often enough, but things around us have a cost.

We need space to keep them; they use much of our attention, energy, and space. There is value in keeping pictures and mementoes, but do you need 20 versions of the same charger? Even if you had larger storage, you would only be postponing the problem to the next move.

Consider the cost of moving stuff.

Moving takes a lot of energy.

The more you have to move, the more tiring and expensive it will be. The more you have to move, the more decision you will have to make on what goes where and what needs to be removed. Cut your losses now, and think about what should go.

You don’t have to become a minimalist (I probably won’t), but getting rid of 25% of my things has been a great way to make more space around me.

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