Before you can decide what to declutter you need to know what you have
If you don’t feel completely comfortable in your home but struggle to decide what you should change or what you should let go of, you can use little experimental exercises that are not only fun but also help you see your home from a different and more neutral point of view.
Your increased awareness will help you make more confident and determined decluttering decisions.
EXERCISE 1 – Take the view of a stranger who is visiting for the first time
Go outside and enter your home through the front door again.
Walk through all rooms and pretend to see all your furniture and belongings for the first time.
Which assumptions are you making about the people living in this place?
Take notes of the thoughts, feelings, and judgments that come up.
EXERCISE 2 – Imagine you would move out soon
Walk through your place. Imagine you plan to move on and to have a fresh start in a new place. You want to take along only what’s really valuable to you.
Consider what you would leave behind because you actually don’t need, use, or love it any longer.
Make a list.
EXERCISE 3 – Use photographs to evaluate your possessions
Walk around your home and take photographs.
Somehow, photographs help us see a space with fresh eyes.
Taking pictures changes our perspective and gives us a measure of detachment. This can help us decide what items should stay and what needs to go.
EXERCISE 4 – Move clutter candidates out of context
Choose some of your potential clutter items and put them into a new context by carrying them into another room.
When we see objects settled into a particular place over time, it becomes hard to imagine where else they might go and how the place would look and feel like without them.
Once you detach things from their settled places, it’s much easier to decide what to do with them.
Do you have a better idea now of what you have?
And of what you no longer want to have?
Any changes you want to make in your home?
The next step could be to plan – and do! – some decluttering projects that will help you create the home you love.