Name: Mind Over Clutter
Rating: 3.7 (221 reviews)
Author: Nicola Lewis

What’s in it for me? Come home to peace and relaxation.

Is your home getting you down? Are you dismayed by the state it’s in?

Many of us dread the moment we’ll step through our front door. We hope that home will be a calm, relaxing place. But instead, we face overflowing cupboards and stuff just strewn across the floor. We tell ourselves we’ll get organized – but life is hectic, and we never find the time. So the mess keeps getting bigger.

If that sounds familiar, don’t worry! Help is at hand.

These blinks are your guide to a cleaner, tidier life and to a calmer state of mind. You’ll learn how to declutter your home – stress-free; pick up simple tips to help you get organized – fast; and discover how to maintain your living space in a way that’s healthier for you – and for the planet.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

what decluttering can do for your mental health;
why you should ditch your store-bought household cleaner; and
how you can give your empty tin cans a new lease on life.

A cluttered home is a stressful home.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by your possessions? Have piles of paperwork, clothes, and household objects taken over your home? If the answer to these questions is yes, then it’s time to declutter both your home and your life!

Modern living is complicated, and a tidy house won’t solve all your problems. But it can definitely help. That’s because your physical environment has a big impact on your state of mind. Unpleasant surroundings can actually damage your mental health.

A study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin in 2009 showed that living in a cluttered home can raise the levels of the stress hormone cortisol in your body.

The key message here is: A cluttered home is a stressful home.

These findings are bad news for untidy people; high cortisol levels can lead to an increased risk of depression and anxiety and can also cause concentration lapses. Not only that, but elevated cortisol is associated with physical problems too, such as headaches and insomnia.

So clutter makes us unhappy. But we still avoid reorganizing our homes. Why? Well, for some people the thought of tackling the mess can seem overwhelming – or perhaps too time-consuming.

Although the prospect of decluttering might fill you with dread, the good news is that you don’t have to do everything at once! Start by making small, gradual changes, and over time they will make a big difference.

You could start decluttering right in your bedroom. Step one: begin each morning by making your bed. Completing this simple daily task will mean you’ve already accomplished something before breakfast! This will set a positive tone for the day ahead. Even better, research has found that people who make their bed every day are 19 percent more likely to sleep better than those who don’t!

You could then move on to other manageable tasks, such as sorting through your cupboards. Clutter starts to accumulate when you shove items into drawers and forget about them. So every week, set aside a regular time slot to look into your cupboards. Be ruthless, and throw out anything you no longer need.

But how do you identify the things you don’t need? Well, there’s a simple rule: if an item doesn’t bring you joy, it’s not worth having. So that pair of jeans that no longer fit you? Take a deep breath, and throw them away!

Follow a simple four-step decluttering process to transform your home.

Waking up in a home you love can inspire you to do great things each day. And when you return in the evening, a comfortable home should welcome you with open arms. Transforming your home into this inspirational, welcoming space is easier than you might think. In fact, it only takes four steps.

The first step is to remove every single thing from the room. No, not the furniture, of course – your wardrobes can stay! This is about smaller items, the little things that pile up to create a big mess.

You can make your home safer by creating your own cleaning products.

Your home should be your ultimate safe space. But, worryingly, our homes have become distinctly unsafe. And that mostly comes down to how we clean them. Many of the common household cleaning products are packed with toxic chemicals. These chemicals are called volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. And they can be disastrous to your family’s health.

Volatile organic compounds release invisible gases into the air. Unfortunately, these gases hang around for a long time after you’ve finished cleaning. The result? For some people – especially children – this exposure can cause liver and kidney problems and can even damage their nervous system. In fact, cleaning products with VOCs are so bad that they often make the air inside your home more polluted than the air outside!

Consider the environment before you throw out your clutter.

How can you make your home a better place while also making our planet a better place? We live in a consumerist society, and our shopping habits are having devastating consequences. Whenever we indulge in shopping therapy, we contribute to global warming, polluted oceans, and growth of toxic landfill sites. Our insatiable hunger for new products is taking a heavy toll on the natural world.

But don’t lose hope. You may have been part of the problem, but you can become part of the solution. The answer is to find new ways to use what you already have. Repurposing things in this way is known as upcycling. For instance, instead of throwing empty tin cans in the recycling bin, why not use them to grow herbs or flowers on your windowsill? You could even paint those cans your favorite color and use them to store your cooking utensils.

Decluttering your suitcase makes packing a lot easier.

How do you pack for your vacations? If you’re anything like most people, packing for your dream trip can easily turn into a nightmare. What should you take? Have you packed enough clothes? How do you make sure you haven’t forgotten anything important? There’s so much to think about, which is why packing can drive anybody mad. But don’t panic! You can take your decluttering tips and tricks to the airport, too.

An organized approach toward packing starts with making a comprehensive list of all the items you’re going to need.

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