This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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Do you feel like you’ve accumulated too much clutter yet find it difficult to get rid of it? What types of clutter are most common in your home? Why is it important to take time to declutter your life every now and then?
It can be difficult to part with things that you own but excessive clutter drains your energy. Therefore, it is important to take some time to declutter your life by eliminating things that no longer serve you.
Here are some simple and practical tips on how to declutter your life.
It’s Time to Declutter Your Life
Your surroundings affect your attitude, calmness, and energy. Clutter in your home drains your energy, while eliminating clutter in favor of useful, well-liked things is energizing because it:
- Alleviates the guilt you feel about bad purchases or too-small clothing.
- Eliminates the frustration of not being able to find what you’re looking for.
- Surrounds you with more of what makes you happy—even though you might have fewer belongings, in the end, they’re the belongings that you genuinely like and use.
- Cuts down on choice. Often, too many options make you feel overwhelmed or discouraged—this is why you feel you have “nothing to wear” even with a closet full of clothing. Having fewer, better choices is more satisfying and less overwhelming.
Don’t look at your whole house at once—this will make the task feel insurmountable. Instead, pick one place to start—such as your bedroom closet, the dining room table, or the kids’ playroom—and take stock of your clutter. To clearly see what needs to be eliminated, understand that “clutter” takes many forms.
- Nostalgia clutter includes items you’re holding onto from your past, even though you don’t need or use them, such as hockey equipment from your college days.
- “Useful” clutter includes items that are useful, just not for you. This clutter looks like boxes of old cell phone chargers or half-empty cans of house paint.
- Sales clutter includes items you bought because they were on sale, but don’t use, such as impractical clothing or one-purpose kitchen gadgets.
- Free clutter includes items you’ve accumulated because they were given or handed down to you, such as company tote bags or a gifted purse that’s not your style.
- “Shouldn’t” clutter includes items that you’re holding onto but really shouldn’t use anymore, such as ratty sweatshirts or a half-broken pair of skis.
- Ambitious clutter includes items that you have the ambition to use, but probably won’t, such as scrapbooking materials or fancy cake decorating supplies.
- Buyer’s remorse clutter includes bad purchases—while holding onto it feels like you’re “using” it in some way, giving it away would feel like admitting you made a poor choice.
For each of your decluttering tasks, set up three piles: throw away, give away, and keep. Then, assign your items to one of these piles.
- Put anything that is objectively useless into the throw away pile, such as t-shirts that are riddled with holes or phone chargers from the early 2000s.
- Give away anything that’s usable but you’ll realistically never use, such as pants that haven’t fit for 5 years or the breadmaker still in its sealed box.
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Here's what you'll find in our full The Happiness Project summary :
- How to increase the overall happiness in your daily life
- Why changing everything won't bring you happiness
- How to create your own year-long happiness project
