All too often, we let things pile up as we go about our busy lives. Clutter around the house. To-do lists that never seem to end. Commitments that need to be fulfilled. Projects waiting to be completed. As things spiral out of control, it’s easy to go into auto-pilot and simply cram things into your space or schedule wherever they’ll fit so that you can keep moving through a busy day. But when you step back, this haphazard “cramming” and mindless rat race isn’t honoring your home, your spaces, your time, or your possessions.
Think about your home and your time. Have you noticed recently that you feel uncomfortable in certain areas of your home? Do you feel the urge to constantly clean or tidy in certain rooms? Are there any rooms or areas that simply make you anxious because stuff is piling up in every corner? Does your home have some vital maintenance or repair projects that you keep putting off? Do you feel like you’re spending your days just trying to jump from one thing to the next, without ever really experiencing what’s on your schedule?
If you’re beginning to feel that things are slipping through the cracks in your life, maybe it’s time to step back and determine if you’re really honoring your home, your spaces, your time, and your possessions.
What Does It Mean to Honor Your Stuff?
Picture yourself walking through your kitchen. Maybe the counters are cluttered with gadgets you don’t know where to store. Maybe you open a cabinet and are met with an avalanche of Tupperware containers that hit you in the head and spill out onto the floor. You open the refrigerator to place some new groceries inside, and you find that there’s no space to be found (and it smells like something is rotting, yuck!). You open a drawer to retrieve a knife, and see that two of your steak knives got caught in the drawer’s path when it closed, and now the blades are bent and damaged.
Does this sound like you’re honoring your kitchen supplies? No! Things are crammed in so tightly that they’re being damaged, or they’re not usable because you simply can’t find them. In this instance, honoring possessions would look like keeping only those items you truly use in the kitchen and giving each item a dedicated storage space where it will be safe from damage and easily accessible. As you may have guessed, the same can be true in any room of your house.
Honoring Your Stuff Goes Beyond Tangible Possessions
The idea of honoring your physical possessions is one thing, but apply the same idea to your time. Is your schedule cluttered? Do you find yourself running late to events or commitments because you didn’t allow yourself enough time in between? Is your calendar packed to the brim, but you feel like you’re on autopilot, day in and day out?
Too-full schedules are not conducive to honoring your time and commitments. If you’re running late to pick up your kids from school day after day because of too many other time commitments, are you honoring your kids? If you show up late to a volunteer board meeting because you don’t have any margin in your schedule, are you truly honoring that volunteer organization?
Think of it this way: Would you rather give your wholehearted effort to one or two areas in your schedule, or give small fractions of your effort to a huge variety of things? Spreading yourself too thin leads to not honoring your time, and saying “yes” to more than you can handle leads to not honoring the people you make promises to.
The Domino Effect Begins with Honoring Your Time
When our schedules become too cluttered, the rest of our lives tend to follow suit. If you have too many time commitments and not enough space in your schedule to take care of your home, that’s when the items in your home begin to pile up. Maybe your list of to-do’s seems to be spiraling out of control, and every time you check something off you add three more things. Before you know it, you’re overwhelmed, your home is a chaotic mess, you’ve neglected yourself and your family, and you’re just plain burnt out. Not such a happy domino effect, right?
Fortunately, the opposite is also true. Honoring your time, space, home, and loved ones is an act of mindfulness. When you’re intentional to keep your schedule in check, the rest of your life will become a bit more manageable, too. Being aware of your schedule and commitments will help you find the space to complete those projects and tasks that you’ve put off, or it will make you realize that maybe those tasks aren’t worth holding a space for in your schedule.
Once you’ve gotten past the initial overwhelm of reclaiming your schedule, you’ll be able to see gaps in your schedule that you can use to get your home in order. You’ll be able to honor items you use every day by taking time to organize them, or you’ll honor memories and keepsakes by taking time to create a proper storage system to keep them safe. When you have time and physical space to breathe in your home again, you’ll once again be able to appreciate all that you own and the commitments that you have in your life.
Starting the Journey to Honoring Your Home and Possessions
Your home should be a place of peace and relaxation, but it can be difficult to rest and recharge when your home feels cluttered and chaotic. Whether you need help starting to clear the clutter in your life, or you’re simply looking for an objective voice to help you determine your organizational priorities in your home, A Fresh Space is here to help. When you’re ready to work toward honoring your home, space, and possessions, call us to set up your professional organizing consultation.
