Battle clutter, be more organized, free your space

Whenever I think of space, I think of Star Wars, the Space Oddesey or some futuristic Sci-fi movie. This just could be because I'm a dork at heart. Regardless, it is an important subject that I feel is worth discussing.

One thing that we take for granted is that space is finite. You only have a finite amount of space in your home. We always think that it's okay if maybe a few things move to the living room or on the counter of the bathroom. Next thing we know, there's a pile of clothes on the floor of the bathroom and a litter of papers all over the desk. This is actually an issue that I'm currently addressing with my life.

Confession time: Let me first say that I've had a very comfortable childhood. My mother would always clean after me and as I grew older, I had this magical ability to remember where everything is, despite my room looking like a pig sty. Both of these caused my room to be in a constant mess. Despite my mother telling me the room was disorganized, I was able to grab anything from my room that she asked for in a moment's notice. My system was perfect.

Enter college. My first semester at college, I didn't have a roommate. I had two. Suffice it to say, my skills of organization or lack there of lead me to organization issues with one of my roommates, who was OCD (at least in my mind he was). In addition to that, the tumultuous nature of college (read: partying and alcohol) led me to hit rock bottom in the realm of organization. It came to a point that the only way to move around the room was to jump around between patches of cleared ground. I learned a lot about organization in the past few years, with the help and prodding of my roommates.

My all of years of actively learning how to organize, the MOST effective way of being organized is simply having less stuff. By having less stuff, it is easier to organize and you'll be more likely to know where it is. Less stuff means one or two things: less clutter or less energy maintaining your things...possibly both.

A common thought is "I already have it, might as well keep it...there's no point in tossing it...it's not doing any harm."

This is how I thought for a while, but I've realized we only have a finite amount of space and while excess stuff is collecting dust, it is also taking up space for something else and even hinder that sense of freedom and free space.

the size of the average American house as doubled since the 1950's. Think about how much extra stuff we have. The storage industry rakes in 20 billion dollars (that's $20,000,000,000, which is a lot of zeros) in revenue.

There's so many benefits to being minimalist:
less clutter
more spending money on things you really care about
more time, since you no longer are looking for stuff
a sense of freedom
a more calming environment
and so much more

I leave this post with a challenge. I challenge you to try the minimalist lifestyle just to see what it's like. If it's not your cup of tea, totally fine. You can't live like you did before previously. I tried it as an experiment and have been hooked ever since.