I hope you had a great Christmas and your new year is off to a great start. It seems like for my family, based on recent events, this year is going to be all about a “fresh start.” With your tree likely down, your gifts unwrapped, and the weather keeping you inside a bit more than you would like, maybe you are feeling a little bit hemmed in at this point. Could it be that as you look around, you are feeling a little overwhelmed by all the stuff in your house, and you are ready for a change?

You may be at the stage in life where your kids have all moved out. If they’re still at home, maybe they are a little older now, and all the toys that they once played with are filling up closets and rooms. A couple of years ago, my family gave me a picture that now hangs in my office which says, “This house isn’t under construction, kids just live here.” It is a perfect reminder for me, as I tend to feel a little anxious when I see a bunch of “stuff” lying around the house. For many people, “stuff” can create a lot of problems. It gets in our way, leaving us irritable. It makes us less likely to have company over. In extreme cases, it can worsen our allergies and asthma and it can cause problems in marriages. What I find interesting is that our “stuff” can creep up on us over time, until we get to the point where we ask ourselves how we ended up with all this, anyway. Here are five simple ideas you can do that will help you reclaim your home, so you’ll actually enjoy living in it.

1. Stop Reorganizing Your Stuff

The first thing to remember with your stuff is to stop rearranging it. Stores that sell organizational tools and containers make a mint, especially after the holidays. But packaging your stuff attractively doesn’t change the fact that it’s still your stuff. Nowadays, many of us simply have too much. Sometimes this happens because we get busy and let things pile up, but it might also be the result of thriftiness taken to a fault…we tell ourselves that we’re saving money by having all these things because we’ll surely need them at some point. Instead, they stuff our closets and garage or become piles in our basement or random corners. But the problem’s not going to go away until the stuff does.

2. Clear Out Your Mail

There’s nothing like a pile of unsorted mail and magazines to create unpleasant problems down the line. This has created more than one “unnecessary” argument in my house. I like to clear things out as they come, but others have to set a certain time during the week to get things like this done. What matters is that it is getting done, whenever that is. I would suggest putting on a movie, then sitting down and sorting through it. All of it. Reclaim your counter or kitchen table! If this is an ongoing problem for you, do a search for an online service that removes you from mailing lists, and switch to paperless billing wherever possible.

3. Beat the Laundry Pile Down

First of all, that long rack of shirts you haven’t worn since the 90s needs to be purged. Get rid of items that are worn out, stained or have holes, unless of course you are using one of them while you do work around the house. This might be a tough one for some, but consider reducing the number of choices in your kids’ drawers. If they can barely shut their drawers because of all the clothes they have, it’s a clear sign it is time to reduce what they have. They are many needy families that would love to receive what you have. If laundry tends to back up at your house and your kids are ten or older, draft them. Running laundry isn’t very difficult to do, and keeping up on it will reduce the amount of laundry tremendously.

4. Reclaim the Kitchen Counter

You know what’s hard to do when your kitchen’s a mess? Cook! And yet we accumulate so many gadgets, spice jars, and plastic containers that we often have nowhere to work. Get rid of the random appliances you never use anyway. Clear out old spices. Match containers to lids and recycle the rest. It’s amazing how much easier and fun feeding yourselves will be when you have room to work!

5. Purge Your Storage

This is where all that “rainy day” stuff accumulates. Clothes you’ll never wear again, documents you could have destroyed a decade ago, “sentimental” items you don’t remember getting. Think how nice it will be to use that space again! Did you realize that the self-storage industry generates about 30 billion dollars a year? Not bad when you consider that a majority of what self-storages are used for is for all the “stuff” we should have gotten rid of years ago. Just sayin’!

The bottom line is that when we get rid of all the “stuff” in our house that we no longer need or use, it feels good and it creates a sense of freedom. Plus, if we have the opportunity to give away what other families need, all the better. Think about this, if your house was to catch on fire, and you only had a couple of minutes to get out everything that was of value to you, what would you get. Answer that, and it will tell you what really is important and what really your extra “stuff” is.

Please feel free to share this with others.

God Bless,

Doug Hedrick