How To Declutter Your Life

Step One : Decide What to Throw Away

When your cousin who lives next door opens up a pig farm partially on your property and puts a port-a-potty by your porch for his wedding reception, it may be time to consider whether or not you want to put up with that sort of thing anymore. When his mother starts trying to take your mother’s inheritance after your grandmother dies and their other sister doesn’t really do much to stop it, it may be time to think about how much of this you’re really okay with. And when your grandfather shrugs his shoulders and says that it isn’t a big deal that your cousin is creeping into your yard at night or sending you nasty emails or puncturing your boyfriend’s tires, it might just be time to consider decluttering the people in your life.

And when the house your family is fighting over, the one that you’ve been living in while you went to college, has broken windows and ceiling tiles full of asbestos and no central heating even though it snows mercilessly in winter, maybe it’s time to let go of it. Maybe part of the process of letting go is realizing you probably deserve better than opening the bathroom cabinet one morning to find a snake or discovering rat droppings all over your nail polish rack. Some things, whether people or places or that old box full of junk in the back of your closet, are too much or too little or just aren’t meant to be and when you realize that, it makes it a lot easier to throw the whole thing in the trash and walk away.

Step Two : Decide What to Keep

After you make the decision that you probably shouldn’t spend time with the people who call you names and put dead rats outside your bedroom, it’s time to decide what things you still want to keep. When your partner is kind and patient and wants to build a future with you and when your mom is trying her best and your brother has always been there, it’s probably safe to say that these are things to keep. It’s probably a sound decision to say that your tiny family, who bakes Christmas cookies in the shape of gnomes and drinks macchiatos in miniature cups over hands of gin rummy, are worth holding onto.

Here you realize that Step Two is often easier than Step One. It’s sometimes simpler to determine what things in your life work and what things are worthwhile when you’ve already seen what things are ugly and disastrous and broken beyond repair. There’s a lot of pain and disappointment that comes with letting go of things, whether they’re as large as destructive relatives or as small as a pair of shoes that pinched just a little too much. With Step Two, you find that now you get to focus on the good things in your life, like the people you surround yourself with who are kind and full of love, or your favorite sweater that you’ve had since high school. There’s a lot of happiness to be found in decluttering once you get past the hard part.

Step Three : Move Forward

Now that you’ve made your determinations and evaluated what things don’t work and what things do, congratulations! You're Done! It really is that simple, if simple truly can be used to describe what you’ve just gone through. Yes, there will always be future spring cleanings and times when you need to repeat Steps One and Two, but for now you’ve done the work and you’re free to move forward. You come to realize it’s okay to step into a new life now, and to do so with a light heart and an unclenched jaw. It’s okay now to put on your favorite sweater and settle in for a long game of cards without a second glance at all the things--immaterial and otherwise--you've left behind.