🧼 How to Declutter Properly

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Hey there! Welcome back to The Flow by Flocus. If you’re new around here, welcome! 👋 You can catch up on our previous editions right here.

This week: It’s all about clutter — how it’s holding you back, how tackling it can boost your productivity, and how to declutter the right way. Let’s get into it!

🥵 First, How Clutter is Holding You Back

When you hear the word “clutter”, you might picture a messy room filled with stuff.

Clutter is essentially one step removed from trash — it’s useless, unessential, or no longer serves you.

But clutter isn’t just about physical items. Someone can have a tidy physical environment but struggle with clutter in other ways, like:

• Putting more tasks on their to-do list than they can realistically finish in a day

• Feeling overwhelmed when opening their inbox because of all the unread emails

• Being unable to focus on one task because of the sheer amount of things on their list

The bottom line?

The more clutter taking up space in your brain and environment, the less free space you have to go around.

If you’re feeling inspired to do a little decluttering, read on — we’ll share hurdles to watch out for, plus a step-by-step breakdown on how to declutter effectively.

🚧 3 Big Hurdles on Your Decluttering Journey

First, before we get into how to declutter, watch out for these obstacles along the way:

• 👋 Yourself: Yes, you might be one of the hurdles. It's easy to hold on to things "just in case" or procrastinate making a decision.

• 🚰 Sunk cost fallacy: Let’s say you bought a new expensive skincare product, but it irritates your skin. Letting go of it can feel crummy — but it also frees up mental and physical space, which is priceless. Plus, it saves you time and money in the future by showing you what not to invest in.

• 💖 Sentimental value: We all hold on to items out of nostalgia, guilt, or feeling like we'll "want it someday." It's okay to let go and keep the memories without the physical items weighing you down! (Tip: Take a picture of sentimental items before parting ways with them to give yourself peace of mind)

Now that you know to keep your eyes peeled for these obstacles, let’s get to the goods: how to declutter, the right way.

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Now, here’s how to declutter effectively!

🧹 How to Declutter, The Right Way

You can apply and adjust this step-by-step process to virtually every decluttering project!

🥇 Step 1: Pick One Thing

Pick a category to declutter — it can be physical stuff, like clothes, or digital items, like emails.

Choosing just one thing is really important. Trying to declutter multiple categories at the same time can quickly make you feel overwhelmed and defeated.

✍️ Step 2: Take Stock

Once you’ve decided what to focus on, it’s time to start taking inventory of your items.

For example, if you’re decluttering your wardrobe, you might take each clothing item out one by one. If it helps, you could make a list and jot down each item.

And sure, creating an itemized list of every clothing item you own probably isn’t your idea of a fun afternoon.

But investing this time can help you understand how many clothes you own, which will reinforce the need to declutter — and make it easier to let go of things that no longer serve you.

🔍 Step 3: Assess

Now that you’ve got a working inventory, it’s time to assess each item. (If it works better for you to process as you go, that’s cool too!)

Going back to our wardrobe example from step 2, here are a few things you might ask yourself while assessing each clothing item:

• How does this make me feel when I wear it?

• Does it need any repairs or adjustments?

• Is it still my style or color?

Feel free to adjust this list to whatever questions make the most sense to you.

🥋 Step 4: Act

Assessing each item makes it much easier to decide what to do with all your stuff.

With your inventory and review done, you can move on to the really impactful part: actually decluttering.

You’ll probably sort your clothes into various piles or boxes for things you’d like to keep, donate, sell, upcycle, and dispose of.

With everything sorted, all that’s left to do is follow through and actually donate that bag of clothes.

⚡️ Step 5: Optimize

Congrats, your wardrobe is freshly decluttered! But there’s still one last thing you need to do: set Future You up for success.

The real value in decluttering comes from the actions it teaches you to take going forward — not just from the extra breathing room it gives you!

After all, what’s the point in decluttering your wardrobe if you go right back out and buy the same kind of stuff you just got rid of?

The decluttering process has a lot of valuable lessons to teach you about yourself and your preferences.

Here are a few takeaways you might implement after your wardrobe refresh:

• Avoid buying low-quality items and irritating fabrics

• Stick to complementary colors and styles

• Upcycle clothes that no longer fit but have sentimental value into crafts like t-shirt quilts

🪅 Flocus Picks

A curated list of things worth sharing.

• decluttering, organizing, and deep cleaning my entire apartment (Video) — If you need a little company while you clean and clear, put on this 45-minute vlog!

• Cleaning Hits (Playlist) — Throw on this pop playlist when you need a jolt of energy to power you through your decluttering projects

• How I Declutter My Mind (Post) — Need some inspo for sprucing up your mental environment? Check out this guide from Change Becomes You

🖥️ Flocus: Your Personal Productivity Dashboard

Decluttering your spaces? Flocus can help you declutter your mind, too. Add your decluttering tasks into the reorderable task list, and tackle one priority at a time.

Plus, create a calming environment with aesthetic backgrounds and soothing ambient sounds to stay focused as you clear both mental and physical clutter.

Decluttering is a great way to refresh and reset your environment — but it can quickly get overwhelming without the right approach.

Try these tips for your next decluttering project and let us know how it goes!

Until next Sunday,

Flocus Team