The Star Malaysia - Star2

Letting go of clutter

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FoR a spotless house, it pays to be ruthless when you’re dealing with clutter. Spring cleaning usually refers to the annual event of cleaning a house thoroughly.

one of the biggest hurdles in any cleaning operation is getting rid of clutter. once the unwanted stuff is out of the way, the actual cleaning is a lot easier and faster.

Since you know your working style best, decide whether you will reach your goal faster by working uninterrup­ted over a weekend or setting aside 10 minutes every day to complete little tasks. Plan a schedule, set a reasonable deadline, and stick to it.

Sort out the clutter one room at a time. Make instant decisions about what to keep and what to throw away. The longer you take to decide, the more likely you’ll end up keeping everything. Don’t fool yourself by transferri­ng the clutter to another room.

Many organising experts advocate the system of sorting clutter by setting up four containers and categorisi­ng them as “Donate”, “Throw”, “Recycle” and “Store”. As you go through stuff in each room, sort them into the appropriat­e groups. At this stage, you can gauge whether you need to upgrade your storage space to stow things in a neater way.

If you’re undecided about an item, ask yourself some questions and answer them honestly, such as “Have I used this in the past year?” and “Can I live without it?”

After you’ve accomplish­ed your task, you need to commit to a maintenanc­e plan to remain clutter-free. That may mean breaking old habits that led to the clutter problem like buying on impulse and adopting new ones like buying something only when you throw out an old item. – The Straits Times / Asia News Network

 ??  ?? sort out the clutter one room at a time.
sort out the clutter one room at a time.

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