How Clutter Affects Your Time, Money, and Stress

Examples of stress clutter can cause:

• Having guests over becomes an embarrassment or an event that takes all-day preparation.
• Each room carries visual reminders of all the work that needs to be done in the way of cleaning.
• According to the principles of feng shui, clutter drains you of your positive energy.

Guidelines to follow to help you decide where you should draw the line on clutter:

• Company. Do you like to have your home neat enough to have drop-in company? 
• Organization. Is your home organized enough that you can generally find everything you’re looking for without having to search?
• Stress level. Can you truly relax in your home or is it an energy drain?

• Go in every room and divide your things into four boxes: things to donate, things to throw away, things to keep, and things to store. If you don’t need it or love it, consider getting rid of it.
• Go through your box of things to keep and find a place for everything. 
• Finish one room before moving on to the next.

• If a job takes around 30 seconds or less to do, do it immediately: put away your shoes or sort your mail.
• Watch your ‘hot spots’. Clutter tends to accumulate in the same places: the front door, the kitchen table.
• When you take something out, you should simply put it back.
• Stop receiving junk mail: to cut down on paper clutter is to get rid of the junk before it comes in.
• Put on some music and take 15 minutes a day, to clean.