Your determination to declutter your home starts off great, but then somewhere along the way declutter gets hard. Soon you’re struggling to keep going. Many of us have been there, that is why I want to look at some of the reasons decluttering gets hard and give you the solutions to keep going!
Do a quick Pinterest search and you’ll find article after article promising you easy ways to declutter your entire home in just one weekend.
Heck, I even have more than a few articles on how to make decluttering your home easier (though I don’t promise you can declutter your entire home in a weekend).
But here’s what most of these posts don’t tell you. If you’re serious about having a clutter-free home and keeping it that way, there will come a point when decluttering gets hard. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee it.
Why Decluttering Gets Hard And The Solutions To Keep Going
Anytime we seek change in making our lives better, moments of difficulty come. But those difficulties don’t have to make it hard to live clutter-free. What matters is how you respond to those moments. That is what will determine your success or failure.
When you encounter these 6 common obstacles that may stall out your decluttering efforts know that it’s normal and use these tips to get back on track!!
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1. Decluttering Gets Hard When The Novelty Has Worn Off
When you first start to declutter your home, it’s actually kind of fun. You’re embarking on a new adventure. Because you’re in the initial stages it’s fairly easy to declutter the first wave of stuff.
It’s kind of like that new car. In the beginning, no one is allowed to eat in it or any other activity that will get it dirty. You immediately wipe off every little smudge and carefully inspect the first car wash.
Eventually, you become comfortable with your car. The little spills are not such a big deal and taking it to the car wash becomes another chore on the to-do list.
The exact same thing often happens with our decluttering efforts. Doing anything past the novelty stage is just doing more of the same thing. It’s hard to pay attention and decluttering gets hard!
To maintain consistency once the novelty wears off requires discipline, diligence, and focus.
The Solution to Keep Going – Set Decluttering Goals
The best way to keep your motivation up is to set a measurable goal. Any good goal requires a measurable metric. Find a smaller metric area to focus on.
For example, instead of a goal for a clutter-free home, set a specific goal to create a capsule wardrobe. This will help you to keep decluttering your closet as you work on your wardrobe.
Or think about a goal where you clean your kitchen in under 20 minutes. You know that the amount of time you spend cleaning is tied to the amount of stuff you have. This will help you to keep going with decluttering your kitchen until you’ve reached your ultimate goal.
At this stage, it’s all about creating good habits by showing up every single day. As long as you are doing this you’ll overcome that stage where decluttering gets hard!
2. Having to Make Too Many Decision Makes Decluttering Feel Hard
2. Having to Make Too Many Decision Makes Decluttering Feel HardDecluttering requires you to make a ton of decisions. You must decide:
- What to keep
- What to get rid of
- How to get rid of it
- Is it trash
- Should you sell it
- Should you donate it
- Do you have a friend that needs it
- What do you do with the kids’ artwork
- What about that pursue that you spent way too much money on but just didn’t work
Some of these decisions are little and some are really big. Is it any wonder decluttering gets hard?
Let me tell you decision fatigue is a real thing, not just a buzzword. The more decision we make the worse they become and the quality of decisions diminish.
As we deplete our mental resources, we become less productive. Needless to say, decluttering gets hard when we can’t be productive.
The Solution to Keep Going: Focus on Easy Decluttering Tasks
The key to overcoming decision fatigue is to give yourself the mental space to figure out what matters most to you.
When you find yourself struggling with all the decisions you must make, keep it low-key.
This is the time to switch to something easy to work on. Think the bathroom medicine cabinet, extra kitchen utensils, or the kids’ old happy meal toys.
By focusing on easy decluttering tasks, the decisions surrounding that clutter will be easier to make. This will help you to keep going until you’re ready to tackle those tougher decisions.
3. Decluttering Brings Up Emotions That Make It Hard To Declutter
Often our decluttering efforts stall because we get hung up on the perfect thing to do with the stuff we’ve collected over the years. It’s so easy to over-analyze all the issues we have to decide on, that we become paralyzed.
Not just that, but as you minimize, new emotions rise up. Suddenly all those emotions previously covered up by shopping are coming to the surface. It’s so much easier to give up than to deal with tough emotions.
This is where decluttering gets hard, fast.
The Solution To Keep Going – Create Deadlines For Removing The Clutter
During these times it’s so important not to stress over the perfect thing to do with the items you’re decluttering.
Give yourself a time limit. Say the items you’re dealing with must be gone by a specific time period. You want to just move the stuff out of your house.
Go ahead and post something on Facebook asking whether anyone knows of someone in need. Just move it out the door. The key is to just keep going and pushing through the hard stuff. For more ways to deal with the emotions that prevent us from conquering our clutter read this!
4. Decluttering Gets Hard When You Don’t See The Progress Expected
As you move through your decluttering efforts it’s reasonable to expect to start seeing a certain amount of progress. After all, you’ve been working really hard. But then something happens, just when you think you’re making real progress it seems as if there is more stuff to go through than when you started. Ugh…
This is totally normal. In the beginning, your decluttering efforts are really only focused on the immediate stuff you see. The stuff that’s overflowing your closets and drawers.
But as you tackle that clutter, all of a sudden you get to the garage or the basement or even worse the extra storage unit you know you need to empty. At this point, decluttering gets so hard it can feel impossible, like a never-ending chore. And the decisions just keep getting harder and harder.
The Solution to Keep Going – Document Your Decluttering Progress
Look, I want you to know first and foremost this is totally normal. Everyone who is really committed to decluttering their home and life reaches this point.
These are the times you remind yourself of the truth. And the truth is that you have already accomplished a ton, no matter how much remains.
This is one of the reasons I often suggest taking photos before you start decluttering. Before photos are a great way to see all the progress you’ve made. Even if you didn’t take pictures, find some older photos from before you started and look back on them, you will be amazed.
When you feel like you’re not making the progress you expected, take some time to stop and realize how much you really have done. This alone can be a great motivator to keep going.
Remember you’ve got this!
5. When Decluttering Feels Wasteful It’s Hard to Keep Going
5. When Decluttering Feels Wasteful It’s Hard to Keep GoingHaving a lot of clutter requires getting rid of a lot of stuff. This reminds us of just how much money has been wasted on needless things.
It starts to feel like you’re wasting even more money by just donating or giving away all the stuff you spent your hard-earned cash on. Now doubt decluttering gets hard for anyone when you feel like you’re being wasteful.
The Solution to Keep Going – Let Go of Guilt
But here’s the thing. You’ve already spent the money, the damage has been done. Every time you look at that item you now feel guilty.
Guilt is a negative emotion. It’s time to let it go. Let go of the guilt by getting rid of the item.
Know that you’ve learned a valuable lesson and commit to being more discerning in future purchases.
6. Because Change is Hard Decluttering Gets Hard
Decluttering your home and learning to live a more minimal lifestyle represents a pretty big change for most of us. Often we keep stuff because it’s what we’ve always done.
It’s easy to tie our self-worth to our stuff. For example, there was a time when I placed a lot of value on my education. This caused me to hold on to my old textbooks for years. When I became a mom, I placed tremendous value on that role. I placed a ton of expectation on myself to keep my kids’ artwork, pile, and piles of it.
When we try to change it’s natural to have expectations of what things should look like. All of a sudden our expectations are being interfered with. Decluttering gets hard, discouragement sets in and the temptation to give up soon takes over.
The Solution to Keep Going – Focus on the Benefits of Decluttering
At these times realize that just because you’re used to doing things a certain way or having a certain living style, it doesn’t have to define who you are today. The stuff you want to hold on to is not what you truly value, they’re just reminders.
Stop being hard on yourself and know that letting go of the excess will only help you to clear the space in your life to genuinely enjoy those things that matter most to you.
Remember you don’t have to get rid of everything. If something has genuine sentimental value to you, by all means, keep it! I don’t imagine I will ever get rid of my college diplomas or a variety of precious keepsakes from my kids’ childhood.
Because I have kept only a sampling of their drawings and other keepsakes they are more precious to me than if I had kept everything. For things, you feel you should get rid of but also hold some memories, consider taking photos of the items.
The changes you are making as you declutter your home and life are positive. Don’t’ get stalled out when decluttering gets hard. Know that hard times are normal and use these tips to keep going. You’ll be glad you did!
[…] of the hardest parts of decluttering is the sheer volume of decisions you have to make in deciding what to keep, what to declutter, and […]