Why You Should Declutter Archives - Making Time for Giggles

10 Reasons Why You Should Declutter Your Home

Aug 5, 2020 | Blog, Decluttering, Minimalism

10 Reasons Decluttering Your Home Will Change Your Life!

Everyone is talking about decluttering. How to do it, when to do it, where to do it… but it isn’t always clear WHY we should declutter.

I mean, people talk about the obvious things, like the amount of time you spend cleaning, but very few of those posts get you past having minimalist house envy.

So in this post, I wanted to talk about the benefits of decluttering and why decluttering your home will change your life.

This post will help you get off the fence of deciding if decluttering is for you and your family.

And if you have been decluttering for a while, but you are struggling to find motivation to keep going, this post should help you see why it is so rewarding to persevere.

When most people begin decluttering, they go straight to grabbing stuff and putting it into the boxes or bins.

Many times skipping over the biggest key to completing the process: knowing WHY they are decluttering in the first place.

So as you read this post, see if any of the reasons listed here resonate with you and could become your WHY for transforming your house.

And if you prefer to watch instead of read, check out this video:

10 Reasons to Declutter Your Home

1) Decluttering is one of the 7 Secrets to Always Having a Clean House

Have you ever been jealous of your friend who always has a clean house?

You know, the one that must have had their professional cleaning crew there just minutes before you arrived because the house feels so neat and tidy?

Well, your friend’s trick isn’t that they hire professionals.

Their trick is that they don’t have a lot of extra stuff making their house look dirty.

How do I know this? Because our minds perceive clutter and being messy.

There have been so many times that people have walked into my house and commented about how clean it is… but the funny thing is that I hadn’t actually cleaned recently when I got the compliments.

When you walk into a house that has everything put away, it feels clean!

If you want to see the other 6 secrets for always having a clean house, check out The 7 Secrets to Always Having A Clean House, or watch the video here.

2) Decluttering Decreases The Amount of Time and Effort That It Takes to Clean

I know this one is on every list out there, but it is such an amazing benefit that I couldn’t leave it out!

Not only will decluttering decrease the amount of time that you spend cleaning on a daily and weekly basis, but it will also decrease the time that you spend getting your house back in order after you go away for the weekend or come back from a long trip.

Plus when your house is decluttered it is very obvious if something isn’t where it should be, which leads me to…

3) Your Kids Will Be Able To Clean Up After Themselves

One of the reasons that kids’ rooms are typically a mess, is that they have too many things to put away.

When you have too many things to put away, it is almost impossible for every toy to have a specific place that it goes. And when toys don’t have a specific place that they go, it is almost impossible for kids to know when their room is considered clean.

Have you ever asked your kids to clean their room, but you had to send them back multiple times before it met your standards? If so, try decluttering their rooms.

Once it is easy for them to see exactly where everything goes, they will be capable of cleaning up after themselves.

Why Busy Moms Should Take Time to Declutter: 10 Reasons Decluttering Will You Save Time and Money

4) Decluttering Makes It Easy to Find What You Are Looking For…

…Because you know where everything is supposed to be!

When you live in a house that is decluttered, and everything has a place that it lives, then you waste very little time looking for things.

When I was growing up, I remember spending a lot of time looking for different things on any given day. And that is because nothing had a specific place that it belonged.

This was one of the biggest motivators for me to live in a clutter-free house when I grew up because I wanted to always know where things were when I was looking for them!

5) Decluttering Allows You to Be Present

When you are constantly cleaning up, you have very little time to sit down and be present.

But when you declutter, you aren’t spending all that extra time running around putting things back anymore. Which means that you can spend that extra time with your family.

6) It Reduces Stress, Makes You More Productive, and Makes You Feel Better

There are many studies showing that clutter produces cortisol (aka the stress hormone) and makes people feel more depressed and less satisfied in life.

Your mind sees clutter as something on its to-do list that it needs to take care of.

As Christina Scalise said, “Clutter is the physical manifestation of Unmade Decisions.”

And unmade decisions make our brains a little crazy.

Decluttering forces you to make decisions about the items sitting around in your house. You have to look at everything that you own and decide if you love it right now… or if it snuck into your house somehow, but it isn’t serving any useful purpose.

So if you want to clear your mind, clear your clutter!

7) Decluttering Makes It Easy to Decide What to Wear

When you only have what you love and use consistently in your closet, it is much easier to decide what to wear every day. You don’t have to sift through all of the extra clothing that you only keep “just in case” to find what you are looking for.

Like I’ve said before, I’ve never had a closet that was stuffed full because I’ve always been drawn to minimalism and started decluttering as a kid, even before I knew it was a thing.

But one of my good friends asked me to help her declutter her closet recently.

It was interesting to me, after the process was over, how much less time she told me it took her to get dressed.

She also travels a lot for work and said that it used to take her 2-3 hours of trying on clothes to pack for a trip. She never knew if something still fit or how it looked on her.

Now she takes very little time to pack because she knows and loves everything the has.

Decluttering your closet can also make it easier when you are shopping for new clothes since it teaches what your your personal style is as you pare down your wardrobe.

You will quickly start to realize which colors you are drawn to most, which styles look the best on you, and which type of clothing you choose to wear the most.

Once you have decluttered your closet, you will easily know if you will wear an outfit (or not!) before you take it home from the store.

8) Decluttering Allows You to Help Those In Need

Americans tend to keep a lot of stuff sitting around their houses “Just in case.” But in many cases, someone else could use these things right now.

When I wanted to donate some of our baby items, I found an organization that collects items for teenage mothers and single mothers who don’t have a support system.

I knew that the items would get good use and be going to someone that truly needed them.

The organization even came to my house to pick everything up!

When you are donating items, think outside the box of Goodwill and look for organizations in your area that serve people who could specifically use the items you are donating.

9) Decluttering Can Help You Make Money

If you have valuable things that you are decluttering, selling them can make you some cold, hard cash!

I had always wanted to play the violin, so my parents got one for me off of ebay for $75 when I was 14. After struggling to learn from video lessons for about a year, I quit.

But I kept the violin, always telling myself that someday I was going to get a teacher and learn how to play.

Well the years past, I got married, and eventually had my first baby.

Every time I saw the violin, I felt guilty that I hadn’t learned yet.

Finally, I realized that the likelihood that I would be able to learn an instrument as a new mom was pretty low. So I decided to see if I could sell it.

I listed it for $75 and figured that I would maybe get $50 for it.

But when the guy arrived and I showed him all of the broken strings, he told me it was exactly was he was looking for! Apparently he wanted a violin that he could take apart and put back together, and he paid me $75 for a broken violin! Go figure.

So now I don’t feel guilty about not learning the violin, he gets an instrument that he can deconstruct, and I earned some money. Win-win-win!

10) It Makes Moving Easier, Less-Stressful, and Cheaper

Whenever we moved growing up, the process was always stressful.

We would be packing for weeks before we moved, we would still be frantically putting things in boxes the day that the trucks arrived, and we always had to get an extra truck because we had so much stuff.

The moving experience for Ross and I living in a minimized house has always been very different. It has usually taken us about one week to pack up, we’ve usually been completely done with everything waiting in the garage or the living room the day before the truck arrives, and we usually need a much smaller vehicle to move ourselves that we even realize.

At first, it was almost weird to me how easy it was, but it makes a lot of sense.

Less stuff = less time. And Less Stuff = Less Money spent on a moving vehicle.

I’ll take it!