Arriving home from a trip is one of the best times to do clutter clearing, especially if you’ve been away for at least a couple of weeks, and even more so if you have been abroad and spent time in a culture that is different to your own. You see your home in a fresh light. Things that have become clutter stand out and are so much more obvious than before, when you saw them every day but didn’t really “see” them.
It’s a good idea to give yourself at least 24 hours at home after such a trip, rather than rushing back to work the next day or doing whatever it is you do. Give yourself the time to review your life and make changes you want to make. This is when clutter clearing truly becomes a treat rather than a chore.
Start in any room and look around it with new eyes. Which objects no longer fit with your life or with where you want to be headed?
Perhaps you have some pieces of furniture you no longer use or like, but you’ve become so used to them you no longer notice them?
Maybe you have some decorative objects that fitted perfectly with your life when you first brought them home but you’ve moved on now and they have not?
Having too many objects like this keeps you anchored in the past and makes it difficult to create a better tomorrow.
What about your clothes? This is a good time to weed out the ones you realize you no longer like or wear.
Look at your bookshelves. Take out the books that are no longer interesting to you.
Arriving home from a trip is also a good time to sort through any photos you took while you were away. Look through them all, and then keep the best and delete the rest right then and there before they even become clutter.
If you share your home with others and they went away with you on the same trip, they are likely to be able to see things more objectively too, so you can invite them to be involved in the process. If they stayed home while you went away they may not see things the way you are seeing them, so proceed gently, focusing on your own stuff and not even mentioning any of theirs. However when you do your own clutter clearing simply because you want to, it has a lovely way of rubbing off on people close to you if you just get on with it and say nothing at all.
Copyright © Karen Kingston 2009-2015