Spring Reset: 5 Simple Ways to Lighten Your Home (and Your Mind)
As the temperatures finally warm up (they will, we promise!), our spirits are lifting. Spring is a time of renewal and energy, which makes it the perfect time to reset your home. Taking some time to refresh and organize your home can not only make your space feel lighter but help your mind feel lighter as well. Below are five simple ways to lighten your home (and your mind.)
1. Declutter Room by Room
One of the easiest ways to lighten your load is to literally lessen what you own. Decluttering can be a long process, but it is the perfect way to begin organizing your home and taking stock of what you own. Start with one room and just begin the sorting process. Open up the cupboards and closets and start pulling out the things you buried there long ago. Sort through what you know you’ll need to keep, what you can recycle or donate, and what you need to throw out. You’ll quickly discover that there’s a lot you’re holding on to you that you might not even remember being there in the first place!
2. Go Shopping Through Your Closets
In the same way that decluttering your rooms can set you on the path to better organization, going through your clothes can do the same. Clothes can take more time to sort through due to sentiment or the paralyzing “what if this fits again someday.” However, you pull out a shirt you wore four years ago to your friend’s daughter’s bat mitzvah and suddenly you’re calling her up to reminisce and now you just can’t get rid of this shirt because it holds all these memories! You’ll get off the phone and tuck it neatly into the drawer and never wear it again. Clothes can be hard to part with, as they’re often a representation of our identities. Nearly everyone owns more clothes than they can wear, though, so sorting through what you actually wear and feel good in versus what you’re holding on to for sentiment (or even just because you didn’t realize it was there) is a fast track towards organizing this part of your home.
3. Don’t Replace the Space
As you start to declutter your space, you’ll begin to have more of it! This can be incredibly satisfying, but it can also spark the urge to start filling that space again with new things. It is important to resist the urge to replace the space you’ve created with more stuff. Buying more things that you won’t use and sometimes don’t even want might provide temporary pleasure, but soon enough you’ll be trapped again in a cluttered and disorganized home. This extra space can be used to give things a home that didn’t have one previously. It’s also alright to just leave it as space. There is nothing wrong with leaving space in your home; you don’t have to fill every nook and cranny with stuff. It can take some time, but you might find that you start to enjoy having space to breathe.
4. Let Go After Seven Years
Paper – files, important documents, receipts – can be one of the biggest areas of clutter in a home. The rule of thumb (check with your tax attorney first!) is that important documents should be kept for seven years. Businesses may need to keep them longer. Even though for most people it is safe to shred older documents, that often doesn’t stop people from keeping important (or not) documents for decades. You might find boxes and bins in your attic of tax returns from a couple decades ago, or your college-age kid’s kindergarten homework that they don’t want. As important as the documents may feel, when it’s time to shred, do it. Once you realize that they’re important in theory and not in reality, you can say goodbye to those yellowing pages and just keep a folder for those last seven years instead. Consider digitizing any document you are able to but be sure to have a secure place to store them and a way to back them up.
5. Develop a System That Works for You
Finally, the most important thing to do when you’re looking to lighten your home is to develop a system that lets you keep it going. It’s one thing to sit down for a weekend and crash-clean your whole house; it’s another thing to find consistent ways of decluttering and organizing that allow you to maintain the work you’ve put into it. What this system looks like will depend on your lifestyle, who you live with, and how much time you have. You might find it easy to do a little bit every day or you might make a schedule for yourself and the family. Whatever it is, focus on doing something that truly works for you rather than what you think you should be doing. And remember, the goal is not perfection but progress.
Springtime is a time to reset and restart. It is a time to take stock of everything you own and give your home and your mind a second chance. It can be a lot of work in the beginning, but as you begin to put your heart into your space, you’ll realize that your home, and you, are worth it.