The cold hard truth is when you add up how much time you spend tidying stuff, organising it, cleaning it, tidying it, researching it, buying it, cleaning it – it translates into a huge percentage of your life.
Imagine what you could have done with that time? Perhaps you could have:
Learned a new skill
Started a side income
Exercised more
Spent time with your kids
Volunteered in the community
Gone travelling
Spent time with friends
And it’s not just clutter of stuff. It’s our digital word and life commitments. Saying yes to things you don’t want to do.
Digital clutter translates into the time spent dealing reading emails that weren’t important. It’s the social media posts that you mindlessly look at. Scrolling through your feed when actually feeling slightly bored. But somehow not being able to drag yourself away because the pull is so strong. Digital clutter is also being constantly distracted by the pings and messages on your phone. It’s reading mindless whatsapp texts and news notifications. It’s also reading news articles just to escape from your life for a little while.
As well as physical and digital clutter, there’s the clutter of commitments and obligations you once said yes to that you no longer want to do. It’s the nights out you no longer enjoy. The list of commitments on the PTA. A hobby that you want to give up. It’s the time spent listening to a friend’s problems that she’s had for years and has done nothing about.
Imagine a life that is empty of that clutter.
Where you don’t spend ages looking for items because your drawers contain only the stuff that you really need.
Where you can clean your house in minutes because you don’t have to move lots of stuff to clean down a surface.
Where you don’t have to pick up after the kid all the time. They can do it themselves because they have much less stuff to manage.
When you have time to exercise, play with the kids, walk and read because you’re not mindlessly scrolling through Facebook and you’ve cleared your diary of obligations you no longer want to fulfill.
Decluttering means emptying your life so you can live it more purposefully. You have more time and energy to start doing what you really want. You have more time to discover what you want your life to be like. And you can live it that way.
Change your life – start decluttering – make it emptier – live purposely.