Floor space

Have you ever been convinced that somebody adds to the stuff sitting quietly on the carpet, right there in the corner of your living room? The good news is: you are probably right about the stuff accumulating. The bad news is, however, that you have most likely put the new stuff there yourself.

There is something about clutter that attracts more clutter. The reason for this, and I believe that is the honest truth, that once you have ‘temporarily’ placed that pile of magazines on the floor, you have declared that space to be a storage space. You may not have done that consciously, but somewhere deep down you have reached a consensus with yourself that THIS is a spot to put things down. And since you strongly believe that, it is so.

There is nothing wrong with placing things somewhere temporarily, of course. We all do that and it is a necessity in daily life. The problems only start if the things we have put down in that place are not removed within a relatively short time, hours, maybe days. Once that pile of magazines has been sitting pretty in that corner, it starts to attract more stuff. Why? Our subconscious has been led to believe that this is a good place for stuff and we simply add to it without thinking twice. It’s as if that pile of stuff has developed its own gravitational field and attracts more clutter to come this way.

This is ‘clutter’ in its purest form: things that have no other home because there is no space anywhere else, things that aren’t deemed important enough to have a home, things we really don’t need any longer but could be bothered throwing away, things we are in two minds about,… The list goes on, but neither of those reasons is good enough to clutter up your space. It’s a clear sign of indecisiveness and procrastination.

Putting things down on the floor is never good practice. First of all, the floor is not the place for any of your belongings unless they are carpets, furniture of doorstops. If you end up with reading materials, toys, clothing, food, etc. on the floor, there is something wrong in your household! Not only is there an issue with clutter, but you will also have a hard time doing a proper household cleaning. When things are in the way of the vacuum, dust and grime (or worse, pests) WILL take over. That’s just a fact.

Best case scenario: you were lazy or out of sorts and things just ended up out of their home spot and you only need to put things back to their original home to sort this out. Do it quickly, because things turn worse very quickly, and the longer you wait, the bigger the task will get.

After putting everything in its place, you may end up with things that you cannot put away … there simply is no space for them to stay. This is either a storage problem that might be solved with reorganisation or additional storage, or it is a question of having taken in too much and you may want to decide to let certain things go, if possible.

This being said, let’s return to the little pile of magazines in the corner. My advice is simple, just follows these steps when you see stuff that is out of its usual place.

• Make it a point to return it to its home sooner rather than later.
  
• If it doesn’t have a proper home, by all means find one for it.
• If you cannot find a home, ask yourself if it’s worth keeping at all.

At the end of the day, lack of space is a clear indication that you own too much. ‘Too much’ is the measure by which we really should judge our living arrangements. If there is no room for things, they are ‘too much’. I could be as simple as that. The crucial question here is, however: “What’s worse: keeping this in a pile and creating disorder, distraction and potential health risks, or getting rid of it?”

If you have enjoyed reading this, you may find these other articles interesting:

• Starting small
  
• Clutter Hack: rummaging through the kitchen
  
• Afterimages