What's Clutter and Why do we lack control over it? Here's Why!

 What is Clutter?

Clutter is simply anything that is disorganised and you think the guests will not see it or ignore it. May it be a junk drawer or a catch-all dining table or an untidy side room or even your bedroom. For many of us, clutter is a totally disorganised home that barely functions and is uncontrollably giving a feeling of stress and unsatisfaction. On the other side, some of us are like, “messy home is a loving home” and Super Mums are ones who can just oversee these little clutters. Clearly, it’s what the seer sees and what her perspective is but I suspect that it’s pretty harsh related to self, that’s why let me share why many of us lack total clutter control.

Why should you Declutter?

Clutter is embarrassing and no matter how much you try to ignore and not see it, and pretend we don’t judge people with messy and untidy homes, we all do. Yes, we don’t pass lasting judgement on the woman with the dirty kitchen, nor we do inwardly criticise mums having junky hair full of flour and food. Even in such a moment when we do realise it’s not appealing, we feel compassion for her so easily. After all, we are mothers — we have been in her shoes many times.

But, nevertheless, her mess has definitely given us an impression of her and her home even if it was a brief glimpse. And we can’t deny the thoughts now that took up residence in our minds concerning her.

This is exactly why we are sometimes so reserved about having guests which randomly pops into our homes, isn’t it? And what happens then is a head-down ashamed of not having done our best to ensure our home is in proper form for these unexpected guests.

What is the problem with having clutter?

Simple! A cluttered home is like an abandoned place. Everything you look at frustrates and suffocates you. Any task or an activity you do in your cluttered and disorganised home pushes you over the edge. And it feels guilty like you can’t even keep up with making everything better and organised.

That being said, you still don’t have to worry about. Because it happens with every family. Things pile up. Laundry pile up. Dishes pile up. This is natural with almost every family. No one’s to blame; everyone’s to blame.

In the morning, you start with good energy, Mission: Decluttering, everything gets into their own places, everything looks fine, at the end of the day, you are knocked out exhausted. The next morning, you don’t want to get out of bed to stay a little longer and enjoy the tidy, organised home. Ah! What a morning. And the day hasn’t passed, children back from school, in no time, everything looks as if you haven’t touched the house for weeks.

We’ve all been there. Cluttering comes naturally to families. Decluttering? Not so much. The good news? As long as we acknowledge and address the root causes of clutter, we can overcome it for good in our homes.

What causes clutter? Why do we have it?

Most of the time or you can say, the main causes of clutter are:

• Disobedient/unorganised family members
• Being Too busy (No Time Management or Prioritisation)
• Procrastination (the action of delaying or postponing something.)
• Tedium (loss of inspiration due to monotony)
• Excuses & Laziness
• Unrealistic hopes
• Toxic relationships
• Exhaustion

USING EMOTIONS TO HAVE CLUTTER

Sentimentalism, unrealistic hopes, and reflections of the heart are major emotional influences over a cluttered home.

Sentimentalism keeps you from creating your own fresh memories and identifying a space as purely your own. The very thought of giving up something from the past can weigh you down with tremendous guilt, especially if someone else in your life has insisted that you should feel sentiment toward the object. Small trinkets, photographs, letters, jewellery, a wedding dress, your grandmother’s favourite scarf, your mother’s collection of ornate dishes, or even a mountable piece of your late father’s run-down mustang are all acceptable treasures to keep for a lifetime, but anything that takes up sizable space in your home (and garage), anything that cannot be stored away easily or placed neatly on a shelf or on the wall, anything that costs you storage fees, and anything that causes stress to you or your family is simply too much.

Unrealistic hopes revolve around the objects we know in our hearts that we’ll never use again. Maybe it’s the goal dress you bought years ago and still haven’t lost weight for. Maybe those 10 pairs of jeans you wore in college need to finally be re-homed? Perhaps you’ve got a closet full of books you keep telling yourself you’re going to read one day. It could be that car your husband or son swears they’re going to fix up, but it’s been 3 years since the cover’s been removed.

You know precisely what it is that you and your loved ones have harboured unrealistic hopes for. It’s time to be honest with yourself and let go. There’s no reason why you or your family should be held back by futile hopes. It’s time to pave the way for truer possibilities.

The reflections of your heart are types of clutter related to how you’re feeling. If you’re overwhelmed, your house is going to reflect that. If you’re in a toxic relationship, your house is going to lack the support it needs to run smoothly—just like you. In most cases, clutter is nearly always a heart matter, but the more you leave your cluttering feelings unchecked in the home, the more your home will work against you and further exacerbate whatever has you sad, depressed, angry, or burnt out in the first place.

You do yourself a disservice by dismissing the functionality of your home and your need for a decluttered space by using what you’re feeling as an excuse. It’s not good enough—not for you, not for your husband, not for your children, not for the family and friends who want to visit you, and not for that beautifully creative and aspiring mind of yours. You all deserve better. Start by not using your home as a looking glass into the depths of your tortured soul.

WHY CLUTTER CONTROL IS SO HARD

Decluttering the home is a difficult and arduous process for various reasons.

Firstly, Rome wasn’t built in a day. This monumental task of thoroughly organizing and decluttering your home will no-doubt take at least a week. Some of us wake up Monday morning and before we know it, we’re going to bed Friday night. Where did all the time go?! Oh yeah—to every other pressing need while the house only got messier. I know, I know, but it’s still not a good enough excuse.

Secondly, we’re our worst enemies. Like emotional causes to clutter, we are accustomed to making excuses instead of admitting our unwillingness. To admit your unwillingness—and yes, even your laziness—would mean you’d have to acknowledge the type of woman you’ve allowed yourself to become. I understand, though. We enter into marriage, motherhood, and even entrepreneurship with a go-getter attitude, only to have our previous worldviews squashed by the reality of what it means to be a wife, mother, and career woman all rolled into one. Even being a stay-at-home mom can introduce us to the woes of seemingly endless tedium day in and day out, leaving us what appears to be a lacklustre life. We had expectations and now we’re plumb tired of having them dashed, aren’t we? Why bother organizing the house when the children work against us? Why clean today what can be put off for tomorrow and the next day and the next? I get it. Every mother, every wife, every woman gets it. But, just because you’re just another 1 in 3,815,013,002 dealing with this, doesn’t mean you should just accept it and succumb to it.

It takes some seriously uncomfortable truths before we’re willing to accept our part in the clutter. Inevitably, a lot of us have to face the harsh reality of it. As homemakers and caretakers to our children, we’re the ones at the helm, steering the ship and commanding the sailors. If the ship is going down or in the wrong direction, it’s a good bet that we’re neglecting our own duties.

When your husband comes home and adds to the mess in some way or another, is that because he’s a big, misogynist brute? Or, could it be that he’s had a busy, stressful day, and the last thing on his mind is to find the proper place for his things? Could it also be that you haven’t taken the time to officially create (or even purchase) those proper places? Are there baskets or bins or hampers or hooks or shelves within view and within reach for a tired, worn-out husband who can’t wait to undress and shut his mind off after dealing with real misogynist brutes all day?

Essentially, clutter control is all about time, perspective, and mindset. This is why decluttering is so difficult. Too often, we excuse away our time and ignore the reality of an honest perspective. We tell ourselves that a cluttered home is X because of Y + Z, it’s never because of “I.” We fill our time with other tasks and then we feel entitled to rest and relaxation in whatever free time or stolen procrastinating time we have, instead of making great effort to drastically change our lives and our family’s lives simply by donating a little time each day to the dream of a decluttered and organized home.

We feel like we don’t have a life because our house is so cluttered, and we tell ourselves that our house is so cluttered because we don’t have a life. That’s nonsense and you know it—don’t you? Acknowledge your reasons against decluttering for what they are—excuses (even good and reasonable excuses are still excuses). Be determined to give this all you’ve got. I think you are. I think you’re here reading this because you can’t take another moment in your frustrating predicament. You are finally ready to discard the excuses, roll up your sleeves, and declutter and organize your home. It’s time for my 7 decluttering ideas to avoid feeling overwhelmed.

I’ll share some useful tips & tricks that you can do to reduce or eliminate clutter in your home. What do YOU do to control clutter? Share with us in the comments section.