Happy New Year! January is that special time of year when we usually use manufactured time divisions to say that we’re going to do things differently than we used to, only to give up the habit a few months later. Okay, that sounds bleak, but there are ways to ensure you keep your resolutions!
Some psychology & goal setting can keep you in healthy habits. And dumpster rental and a good plan can help you start the new decluttering.
Make A Plan!
What’s the first step in any successful endeavor? Make a plan!
If you’re building a house, you have a blueprint. You don’t just start nailing boards together. Likewise, you only start a trip after knowing where you’re going and at least a general idea of how to get there.
Part of decluttering your home is figuring out what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how you will succeed.
Why?
Let’s start with the why. Why do you want to declutter?
Are you making room for a new person to move in? Do you need the space for yourself? You may be trying to make your life run more smoothly, and clutter is getting in the way.
Whatever your reason, figuring it out and keeping it in front of your mind will help you set your goals, plan, and stay motivated.
Set Manageable Goals!
One of the reasons that people fail to reach their goals is that they get overwhelmed. Sometimes that’s because they set expectations too high or needed to know what they were getting into. But often, they get overwhelmed because they’re looking at the forest instead of the trees.
In a way, setting manageable goals is the opposite of figuring out “your why.” It’s not that you don’t want to have the big picture in mind as a motivator. Instead, when doing the day-to-day, you want to think about smaller goals so that the big picture seems close enough for it to be worth trying.
To put it another way, if your goal is to go through every item in your house and only keep the essentials, break that into rooms. And maybe make your goal for a particular day “go through this box” or “sort every item on this shelf.”
Get Some Help
When you work out, you often have a spotter. A spotter is there partly for safety, but for many, the primary benefit of a spotter is moral support and accountability. Get yourself a decluttering spotter!
Be careful with who you select. Don’t pick the passive-aggressive frenemy who always has a compliment that makes you feel worse. Instead, choose the person who pushes you but encourages you.
The Process
There are many ways to declutter, but here are a few general things to help you with the process.
Set up some stations. Separate between the stuff you’re keeping, stuff that’s going to family, stuff your selling, donations, and the items going into your dumpster rental.
Don’t worry at first about getting everything in its perfect spot. Just sort it.
Once you’ve gotten rid of everything you’re not keeping, you can clean what’s left and get it in place.
Going through your possessions can be emotional! Although we provide dumpster rental, we know it’s simply a matter of throwing everything away. So here are some tips for letting it all go.
Think About the Good Your Stuff Will Do
Your trash will go in your dumpster rental, but you will likely have many items that don’t cut to keep but aren’t trash either. There tends to be the hard stuff to let go of.
So instead of thinking about it as your loss, consider the person who needs it and will be getting it. It’s not doing any good collecting dust in your home.
Think About What You Can Do With Your Space
Need some less altruistic motivation? We get it!
Remember why you’re doing this in the first place. You want your home or your life to be better. So what will you be doing with that space? Then, when it gets hard, remember why you’re in the decluttering game.
Dumpster Rental
Yankee Dumpster can’t help you with your sorting, but we can provide the dumpster rental that will knock your New Year’s Resolution of 2023 out of the park. We make renting easy. And with your dumpster, you can keep it as long as you need instead of taking multiple trips to the dump or letting your trash pile up.
Happy New Year!
