Your local movers and storage company in New Haven, Connecticut presenting some tips to declutter your home before a move.
Moving to a new home can be a great opportunity to declutter your living space and get rid of stuff that you don’t need anymore. When you decrease the weight of your moving boxes, you will most likely improve your moving budget.
Before you start organizing your home and packing your stuff, it may be good to know that decluttering begins with you. According to a study published in the Current Psychology journal, reasons for disorderly home don’t come from the outside; the reasons are usually personal and come from inside.
Psychologists have found a strong link between procrastination and disorderly home. It is not surprising because decluttering is a tedious job and procrastination may easily get in the way as a try to avoid tackling the problem. Thus, clutter appears as a by-product of bad habits.
For that reason, try to perceive decluttering your home as a challenge that may improve your habits. As the main tactic to overcome procrastination, try to begin right away. In order to make the process easier, you may want to try out these steps to declutter your home before a move:
As indicated above, decluttering your home is usually hard. This task requires your determination, strong focus, and a lot of energy to get it done. Because of that, knowing WHY you want to do that is of utmost importance.
A growing body of evidence has shown that clutter may negatively affect your health in many ways. It may stress you out, because a disorganized home with piles of stuff may make you easily feel chaotic and out of control. At the same time, when numerous items struggle for your attention, you may lose focus and get distracted. This lack of focus may prevent you from making smart decisions and lose a sense of direction.
When it comes to the effects of clutter on your well-being, one Australian study has even revealed that people tend to eat unhealthy food in the disorganized homes. The reason for that type of behavior might be stress that people usually feel in a chaotic environment.
You may approach decluttering in two ways—by category or by rooms. Advocates of Marie Kondo’s approach believe that it is more effective when you sort your things by categories and then select what needs to go away and what needs to be kept. When you have all the things from one category in front of you, you might get a better perspective about their usefulness.
Another approach is based on selecting one room at a time or even one smaller part of the room like your desk, a nightstand, or your child’s closet. When you finish organizing one little area, it may help you feel more motivated to continue. The idea is to avoid feeling overwhelmed by taking too much and trying to do all at once.
You may need three boxes and one trash bag to sort through things. The first box you may use to pack things you want to keep. The next one might be perfect to collect things for charity. It might be a good idea to do your research before you pack the charity items. These organizations often have specific rules about the items they want to accept.
If you have valuable stuff and you don’t need them anymore, you might want to sell them. Thus, label the third box “sell” if you like.
Before you tackle the problem of decluttering, set clear criteria what to keep, what to give away, and what to toss. Setting the criteria will help you stay consistent and thorough during the process.
For example, you may make a checklist with the following questions:
· Is the item damaged in any way (stained, broken, or torn)?
· Did I use the item last year?
· Does the expiration date of the item pass?
· Do I like it?
· Am I going to use the item in the next six months?
· Is this item a duplicate of some other item by its function?
Going through this list may help you decide faster what to keep and what to toss or give away.
This step might seem the most challenging for many people. Because of that, start decluttering your home when you feel at peace and when other family members are out of the home. Turn on your favorite music to maintain a good mood. Take some time to reflect on your intention and remind yourself why it is important to get rid of unnecessary things.
Try to see that things don’t have emotional value until you give it to them. Specific memories that are attached to things are yours. If it is difficult for you to let go of an unnecessary item, it is probably because you can’t separate your emotions from the thing.
To successfully declutter your home, you may want to see things as what they are—just things. Try taking notes in your diary about these memories and own your emotions. This way, you will remove the extra value you add to your items and your feelings will stay with you. Take a break if it becomes overwhelming.
If you’ve already organized your things but still have more stuff to pack, you might find our storage solutions helpful to make the journey to your new home smooth and easy.
Looking for a local moving company in New Haven Connecticut don’t hesitate to get a free quote.
