Don’t let Clutter hold you back

Declutter Clinic Twitter Post by Roving Jay

Declutter your old life

How on earth do we end up with so much stuff?

There’s something about that human nesting instinct, that when there’s a space in a room or on a shelf we have this overwhelming desire to fill it. But even when every space is taken with clutter, it’s hard to stop accumulating. We get overwhelmed, and that’s when some serious action is needed.

If you want a new life – you have to make room for it.

Illustration of busy computer desk full of clutter Roving Jay — Source: http://uspeh-success.ru/

All Aboard the New Life Train & Leave the Clutter Behind

My new-life train is waiting to depart the station. But I can’t jump on board with a bag full of clutter.

We’re moving half way around the world, and there’s no way we can take all of our stuff with us – and even if we could, I wouldn’t want too.

I’ve seriously lost count of the exact number of years we’ve been anchored in this one spot – but I think it might be 15. We moved into what we thought was a large, spacious apartment, but as each year passed the walls closed in just a little bit more.

When you live in a big city surrounded by Retail Therapy Solutions – it’s easy to get sucked into the commercial hype of accumulation. Here in LA-LA land, the home of Hollywood, image counts.

We did fall under the Hollywood spell for a brief moment, and then pulled ourselves back from the brink of disaster. But even with that awareness and a conscious effort not to accumulate unnecessarily – our life still became more cluttered. Thankfully it wasn’t with big bits of furniture or flash new cars, but all of the small acquisitions still meant that we ended up with a life full of junk we didn’t really need.

When I came back from my last business trip, where I stayed in a clutter-free apartment, I started my decluttering journey. Back then it was an option I chose. But now that we’ve decided to move to Turkey, it’s a necessity. We really have to declutter.

How to Start Decluttering

It’s tough to break habits, and take a leap of faith to start a new. Whether you want to make small changes and just tidy up each room in your house, or whether you want to start a completely new life on another continent. It’s going to be hard.

The approach that worked for me was to break my mission into a lot of small mini projects. Clutter is overwhelming, and the thought of decluttering is no different. So the key is to tackle one room or space at a time, before moving onto the next.

Don’t Declutter Alone

Another thing that helped me get my head around decluttering, was by joining the Declutter Clinic, which is an online course run by Warren and Betsy Talbot from Married with Luggage. Now they’re a little bit kooky, but their message and approach is solid.

They’ve developed an easy to implement, step-by-step approach, for decluttering your life. There’s an online course and a book, and they’re both invaluable tools to make change.

I know that if I didn’t have them along for the ride, I would have got disheartened and given up. But they motivated to make some big changes in my life, and now there’s room in it for more.

Find out about the Declutter Clinic

In the spirit of transparency, I’m a Declutter Clinic affiliate. This means that if you click on my Declutter Clinic links to find out about the course, and then sign up. I’ll get a percentage of the sign-up fee. It doesn’t cost you any more or any less if you go direct, or via my affiliate link, but it’s a way for Warren and Betsy to thank me for promoting their product.

I just left my corporate job of 17 years to become freelance, and am moving from Los Angeles to Turkey. There’s no room in my life for clutter anymore. I’m promoting the Declutter Clinic because I’m an alumni of the course, I read the book, and it worked for me.