Hidden Opportunities to Declutter

I don’t know if I am more aware of it these days, but suddenly I am being presented with many opportunities to declutter my spaces. At work, home, or in the car, I have experienced opportunities to declutter.

Since I know that decluttering makes me feel better mentally and physically, I take these chances when I am presented with them.

Here are five recent opportunities I experienced in the last week:

1. Change of season. My daughter, growing fast, needed to switch clothing to a less-heavy set. The change of season allowed us to declutter her current clothes as well as empty out two boxes of clothes we had stored for this summer.
2. Remodeling. My partner decided to put stairs into the attic. This construction project has impacted my office closet and my bathroom linen closet. Both were opportunities to purge no longer-used items as they were moved out of the way.
3. New desk. My daughter recently transitioned to a “big girl desk”. We took the opportunity to get rid of the junk in her corner of the office.
4. Remodeling, part deux. As things moved out of the construction area, they moved into a storage closet that primarily functions as the cat bathroom. In order to make things fit (and keep them off the floor), I had to declutter. One surprising item that came out of there was the walking cast I had worn back in 1998 during a bout of tendinitis.
5. Family Vacation. We took the Prius on a recent short family trip. Before we left I had to get rid of a few things that had been riding around with me. And upon returning I had to remove the refuse of the car trip.

Benefit of Opportunity-Driven Decluttering

I had always felt that decluttering required a blocked out chunk of time. What I have found is that by looking at everyday events as an opportunity to simplify and declutter, it doesn’t take much effort or time, and goes a long way toward getting rid of the clutter hidden behind doors.

Photo by General Wesc