Why Is Decluttering Important?

These days there is so much talk about decluttering your home. But does it really matter that much? Why is decluttering important?

If you are asking those questions you are not alone.

But let me ask you this question — How do you feel when you walk into your home? Does it feel chaotic or peaceful? Do you feel overwhelmed, stressed, defeated? Or do you feel a sense of calm and at peace?

Why Decluttering Is Important

Your answer to these questions is exactly why decluttering is important. Walking into your home and feeling drained or like all you want to do is throw everything away, move houses and start again is no way to live.

You deserve a home you love! One that causes you and your family to feel at peace and happy to be home.

But here’s what happens when you live in a cluttered home —

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A cluttered home causes:

Anxiety

“Clutter can play a significant role in how we feel about our homes, our workplaces, and ourselves. Messy homes and workspaces leave us feeling anxious, helpless, and overwhelmed. Yet, rarely is clutter recognized as a significant source of stress in our lives” – Psychologist Sherrie Bourg Carter 

The evidence is clear, a cluttered home leaves you feeling anxious, helpless, and overwhelmed.

Makes You Feel Stuck

When your house is a mess, it’s ten times harder to focus and get anything done. You just want everything to be back where it belongs and yet, it’s too overwhelming to do anything about. 

Our environment has such a huge impact on our mindset. When your home is full of clutter, the likelihood is that your mind is full of clutter as well. With all that clutter floating around, you don’t know what to do, so you do nothing.

The end result is that a cluttered home has a tendency to stop us in our tracks and leaves us feeling stuck.

Is Exhausting

After a long day you arrive home and instead of feeling refreshed and ready to relax, a cluttered home makes you feel tired and exhausted. You’ve done so much already and when you look around your home all you can see is more work to be done. You tell yourself you don’t have the energy to tackle it and now you feel more tired than ever.

Causes Depression

A neat and tidy home makes us feel like “we have it together”, and this is especially true for women. So, when our homes are filled with clutter the opposite takes place.

We doubt ourselves, our self-worth takes a nosedive, and our ability to make good decisions decreases. Soon depression sets in and we’re sitting on the couch doing nothing or wasting hours scrolling on our phones. Which of course only increases feelings of depression.

It’s a vision cycle that is directly linked to the clutter in our home. Just another reason why decluttering is important.

Impacts Your Physical Health

A cluttered home is often filled with dust and allergens. The more stuff you have in your home, the harder it is to clean. This increases dust, pet dander, and even mold.

In addition, clutter has been linked to weight gain. According to Peter Walsh, author of “Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight” people living in cluttered environments were 77% more likely to be overweight or obese. That is a huge percentage! If you are struggling with weight this means decluttering is important!

Top Benefits of Decluttering Your Home

We’ve looked at some of the negative aspects of clutter that make decluttering important. Now it’s important to look at some of the positive reasons decluttering is important, because there are a lot of benefits to decluttering your home!!

Truthfully the benefits of decluttering are immeasurable. However, I want to share a few of the top benefits in hopes of motivating you to finally ditch the clutter.

Decluttering Creates More Space

Let’s just get the obvious out of the way! By getting rid of all the things in your home you neither love nor use, you’re going to gain more space! It really is that simple! You’ll have space to put the things you need and organize them beautifully.

But here is something that may be a little less obvious, not only does decluttering create more physical space in your home, it also creates more space in your life!

Decluttering your home allows you to gain more space in your brain! Gone are all the visual distractions, the piles you need to go through, the guilt of leaving things undone are all removed. You now have space to think and breathe.

You can see the benefit of decluttering and why decluttering is important if you want more space in your home and life to do the things you enjoy!

Decluttering Gives You More Time

We all long for a few more hours in our day. But how do you gain time if you are always having to clean and reorganize your home? Without actually getting rid of the clutter, you’re wasting hours reorganizing that clutter and you never really accomplish anything.

When you finally let go of the clutter and become intentional about what you bring into your home you gain time for pursuing the things that matter to you!

Just think about it, because everything you own takes some amount of your time for cleaning, maintaining, storing, and caring for, you are spending a lot of time on your clutter. That doesn’t even take into account the time you spend looking for things because they are buried under all the clutter.

However, by decluttering you gain hours back that you were spending on all that stuff you didn’t use or love anyway. 

That’s a pretty huge benefit of decluttering your home!

If you’re still not convinced why decluttering matters, imagine the hours you will now have to work towards your dream life. More time to spend with family and friends, time for hobbies, self-care, and pursuing whatever passions you have!

Decluttering Helps You to Appreciate What You Have

Having clutter all over prevents you from enjoying what you already have. When you have fewer things in your home you’ll actually know what your favorite things are and you can find them when you want them. The items aren’t hidden in a box somewhere!

Alternatively, the clutter may be covering a favorite item or cause it to fade into the background. Removing the clutter allows those favorite pieces to stand out and allows you to truly appreciate them!

Not only that, but getting rid of clutter causes you to be more selective about what you have in your home. In turn, you’ll be careful in your purchases so that you are only bringing home those things you truly love. As a result, you’ll appreciate what you have instead of wanting to go out and buy more things.

Having a clutter-free home means being able to appreciate all that you have!

Decluttering Saves You Money

There was a point in time when I was the queen of seeking out sales, I was never passing by a bargain, and never turned down free stuff, it was all somewhat addicting. It is also what contributed to the clutter in my home.

But when I started my simplifying journey, I was more than a little surprised at how much money I was spending on things we neither needed nor loved.

I also found money savings in being able to let go of the storage unit that we were paying for monthly. New storage bins were a thing of the past. As was buying things I already owned, just because I didn’t know I already had them.

I know I am not the only one here! If you’re looking for ways to save money, decluttering is important, it just may be the solution you’ve been looking for!

Decluttering Creates a Peaceful and Calm Environment

Believe it or not, this was actually a surprise benefit of decluttering, but also perhaps my favorite. Eliminating the clutter allows you to create an environment of peace and calm!

If you’re being honest with yourself, you know it’s next to impossible to truly enjoy your home when it’s stuffed with clutter and in a constant state of mess. This contributes to feelings of stress and overwhelm. And of course, no one is relaxed when everywhere you look you see a living to-do list of things to be done, ugh!

On the other hand, imagine your perfect day at home, my guess is the house is clean and tidy, and it feels calm and peaceful.

This is one of the best benefits of decluttering, when you walk into your home after a long day, the feeling of calm washes over you and you know everything’s going to be just fine!

Decluttering Simplifies Organizing

There’s really only one rule for organizing your home. “A home for everything and everything in its place.”

This is one of the reasons it’s impossible to organize clutter. When your home is overflowing with clutter you cannot have a designated place for everything, there simply isn’t room.

But, when everything has a home, it is amazing how simple organizing is!

No longer will you need to go on the hunt or have to guess where something is or where it goes. Tidying up and keeping things organized becomes a breeze!

Decluttering Means Less Time Cleaning

In addition to making your home easy to organize, another benefit of decluttering is that it makes cleaning quick and easy.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the less clutter you have, the less cleaning you have to do. It’s so much easier to clean a smooth and uncluttered surface than it is to clean around all kinds of stuff or move it all to clean.

If you don’t have piles of stuff to begin with, you won’t have the extra things to move, dust, and clean around. That is what I call a win, win!!

Personally, I find that there’s no better feeling than coming home after a long day to a clean and tidy home. This alone makes decluttering important for me!

Decluttering Helps You Focus On The Things That Matter

When we are living with a lot of clutter we have little concept of how much that clutter robs us of our focus and concentration.

The reality is that your brain has a limited ability to process information, so a disorganized environment pulls your attention in all different directions. This makes us likely to allow clutter to distract us. Even little things, a random pile of papers, empty dishes on the coffee table, clothes scattered on furniture, and the floor all take some of our attention. With those things out of the way, you are free to focus on things that are important to you.

So, the less clutter you have in your home, the more you’re able to focus on other things, things that light you up and make you love your life!

Now think about what you would love to focus your time and efforts on? The answer is exactly why decluttering is important!

Decluttering Allows You to Create a Home You Love

There is no way I can emphasize enough how much your home matters! Your home environment shapes all aspects of your life. It is the first thing you see as you begin your day and the last thing as you end it. When you love where you start and end your days everything feels so much simpler.

But here’s the important thing to remember, loving your home is not about what your home looks like, rather it’s about how you feel in your home!

Your home doesn’t have to be perfect, but it should be a reflection of you and a place that inspires you. In addition, it’s important for your home to be a refuge where everyone feels safe and cozy.

These things don’t require making big changes; simply by decluttering all that stuff that you do not use or love, you will change the entire atmosphere of your home and most importantly your attitude and mood. Add a few personal touches, and you’ll have a home you never want to leave!

Why Decluttering is Good For You

Now that we’ve looked at some of the top benefits of decluttering, there is another reason why decluttering is important. That is because decluttering is good for you!

Let’s look at some of the ways decluttering benefits you in a personal way.

Decluttering Helps You Feel a Sense of Accomplishment

Making the decision to declutter your home is no easy feat! It takes both commitment and work!

As you accomplish each decluttering task you set for yourself, there’s a sense of accomplishment! This makes you feel good about yourself and motivates you to keep moving forward on all of your goals.

Decluttering Increases Gratitude

When surrounded by clutter, there’s a tendency to want more and more because we are never satisfied. However, by getting rid of the excess you see how little you really need. As you notice all that you have and realize you have all that you need, gratitude increases.

Gratitude is so good for you because it changes your entire outlook and leads to a life of contentment! 

Decluttering Increases Your Ability to Help Others

By minimizing your own possessions and donating them to a local shelter or donation center you are helping those that need the items more than you. When we reach out to others in need, our problems suddenly become smaller.

By focusing on other people and doing something to help them, you will be left feeling much more positive about your own life.

Decluttering Reduces Stress in Your Life

It has been well documented that clutter increases stress without even realizing it.

By decluttering your home, you are essentially removing a good amount of the stress in your life as well!

Decluttering Improves Your Sleep

It goes without saying that getting sufficient sleep each night is vital to our well-being. But did you know that decluttering has the ability to improve your sleep?

In a study by St. Lawrence University,  it was found that sleeping in a cluttered room, is more likely to create sleeping problems.

Consequently, by having less clutter in your bedroom you will find that you sleep much better. Decluttering your home allows you to go to sleep each night with peace of mind that the house is tidy, your to-do lists are in order and you’ve gotten a head start on the following day.

All of these things contribute to better sleep and improves your energy for the upcoming day.

Decluttering Gives You a More Positive Outlook on Life

Decluttering your home has the ability to boost your mood and self-confidence. This naturally leads to a more positive outlook on life overall.

As you take control of your clutter, there is a domino effect causing you to begin taking control over other areas of life. These little things add up to a sense of well-being, and positivity.

After all, nobody that feels good about themselves and their life is going to walk around in a negative mindset.

It’s Time to Take Action on Decluttering Your Home

Many dream of a decluttered home, but few actually go after it. We’ve looked at why decluttering is important. We discussed some of the benefits of decluttering, and we’ve even talked about why decluttering is good for you. So now it’s time to take action!!

The process of decluttering is the only thing that will activate the benefits!

Start by signing up for the VIP list and get the Master Decluttering Checklist, as well as many other resources. Enter your email address below and you’ll be all set. 

Then begin going through the decluttering resources here. 

It doesn’t matter how small you start, all that matters is that you start!