Declutter Techniques

Do you need to declutter but you do not know where to start?
Are you held back by fear of throwing out something you might need or want?
Do you keep items that are perfectly good (or maybe not so good) because you cannot live with the guilt of throwing them away?

Declutter - This style might be just the solution you are looking for. These suggestions are not meant to be a systematic way of clutter control. These techniques are for people who are held back by confusion or emotion and then do nothing rather than try to analyze what is really going on. These techniques may also aid those who are time challenged and think they do not have time to engage is a systematic purge in order to bring about more order to their environment. Each Rambo style declutter technique takes just a few minutes.

The purpose for using a any style declutter technique is to lighten your load, so you can feel what it is like to be unburdened and also examine what it feels like to actually discard items. Many people procrastinate the purge because they are afraid that they may get rid of something they need or want later. These extreme declutter techniques can help you to realize that you can live without most of what you have cluttering up your physical space without any serious consequences at all.

The goal of the extreme declutter is to see how it feels to reduce the amount of stuff in your life.

These techniques are meant for reduction and not control. It is highly likely that using these techniques will stimulate an emotional response and it is the examination of that emotional response that will help you understand your clutter habit and the emotions that perpetuate it.

There are only two rules:

1. You are not allowed to examine any item or ponder its future use or purpose.
2. Use only one technique per week.

Pick up a pile of magazines and put them in the recycle bin - do not go through them or select any magazines at all just pick up whatever you can handle and throw!

Get one garbage bag and quickly go from room to room in your house and pick up anything that is homeless and place it in the garbage bag. Unless you live in a mansion this should not take you any longer than 10 minutes. Tie up the bag and put it at the curb for garbage pickup.

Pick a pile of paper clutter and take the bottom half of it put it in a paper bag. Label with the date and seal it with tape or staples. Put the bag right back in the place where the papers were. In one month if you have not opened this bag simply get rid of it (make sure you take it to the shredders if it has identifying information on it.)

As you proceed with your style declutter techniques take notice of your emotions.

If you are feeling fear try to answer these questions :

• Is there a legitimate reason for my fear?
• Am I in danger?
• Have I placed someone else in danger by my actions?
• Have I made my life better or worse with my Rambo declutter technique?

If you are feeling guilt try to answer these questions:

• Has something bad happened?
• Did I do anything to cause it to happen?
• Did my actions cause harm to another person?

In the days following the eviction of your clutter try to become more emotionally aware of how are you feeling not having those magazines, or papers, or other stuff around to clutter your life.

• do you feel better or worse?
• do you miss your stuff?
• does it call to you from the trash bag?
• do you have any regrets?

Just a word of warning these are extreme techniques. It is not the reduction but rather the emotional response to the reduction that is the most important part of these techniques.

It is quite possible that you will throw something out that was needed. But that is the whole point! The idea is to develop some perspective around the importance of the stuff you have discarded. It is already not serving any purpose and only blocking your growth and potential in your living space. How important can it be? If the stuff was important it would be adding value to your life or if it was an important piece of business you would have taken care of it already. If you really loved it you would be looking after it properly instead of letting it just clutter up your space.

• Perhaps you discarded a bill that needed to be paid? I can absolutely guarantee that another will be sent asking for payment. Make sure you pay it when it arrives.
• Perhaps someone else's stuff got sent to the garbage as it was not in it's proper place? You have the right to get rid of other people's stuff anyway. If they do not want to care for it and make sure it is returned to its proper place then they do not really value it!
• Perhaps you discarded a magazine that had a recipe you wanted to try? Go to the internet and you can find twenty versions of that same recipe there.

A lot of times the excuses for keeping stuff around us are manufactured reasons that we use to protect ourselves from the possibility that we will be doing something terribly wrong if we actually get rid of something.

Declutter techniques can help you to develop some perspective on the real consequences of letting go. I can also give you another guarantee. Those consequences are never as bad as you what you have imagined in your mind.

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