This post was originally published on September 10, 2019.
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By nature, I tend to keep a pretty tidy home.
I love that ol’ saying: a place for everything and everything in its place.
Motto to live by, really. Even if the place is stuffed on a shelf or piled high on the floor. It’s still a place and it’s still in it, amiright?
{Side note confession: I love unpacking right away after a trip because I love putting everything back where it belongs. I hate packing it all in the first place.}
To anyone else’s eye, except for those uber Type A types, it all looks pretty well organized. And, I mean, it is. Even in its imperfection, there still rings a harmony that’s true.
But things can still get out of hand, you know?
Picture this: you’re working 40 hours a week. You have a commute that goes with traffic both ways and so you’re constantly bumper to bumper, even on the back roads because everyone’s found those routes now, too. Annoying. You have a busy social life that takes you out of your home multiple nights a week as well as events for several weekends in a row that leave you with barely an afternoon to cram in all of your household duties.
I’ve also lived in environments, though, where there’s so much unnecessary clutter and piles of stuff that I literally feel like everything’s unraveling at a really hectic pace. It’s kinda like living in a junk drawer. And that’s super stressful!
So, for me, as I fell into a rhythm of homemaking as an adult making my way in this big ol’ world, my default fell to being tidy. I find it helps to ease the stress of life and routines that we can’t necessarily change because it’s not feasible.
Every now and then, I do find myself on a sort of spiral of clutter. The mail piles up, things sit out, not having found a home yet. You know the way it goes.
Isn’t it funny, thought, how it follows that your mental space tends to take on a similarly cluttered feeling? Thoughts get all jumbled and you can’t make sense of things.
I’ve discovered a secret that I want to share. I’ve often found that when I clear up my physical space, it miraculously clears up my mental space, too.
Aahhmazing!
When I’m finally ready to tackle the clutter, I tend to start with the easiest task that causes the least amount of angst. By the time I get to the bigger projects needing attention, I’m usually on a roll and it’s just a matter of perpetual motion to keep the momentum going.
By the end of the decluttering spree, there’s always a deep sense of satisfaction. Right? Like, today I totally killed this whole adulting thing!
