Relaxing at home is easier if you have a relaxing home to enjoy! Sadly, many of us feel more stressed in our homes because they're not decorated in a relaxing way. Elements that impact stress levels—clutter, smells, sounds and color, for example—can be altered, and probably more easily than you think. To create a relaxing home, it’s a good time to de-clutter and remove elements that cause stress, and add elements that create serenity. The following tips can help:
Sometimes less is more, and this is rarely truer than when the topic is clutter! Being in an environment that’s overly cluttered can create feelings of fatigue and of being overwhelmed as your subconscious mind tries to process the chaos surrounding it. If it’s your home that’s cluttered, you may unconsciously be thinking of all the work you'll need to do to clean and organize the mess; if it’s someone else’s home, you may find it hard to feel comfortable as you see so much of the other person’s life on display.
While you can’t go around cleaning up your friends’ homes (or maybe you can, if it’s that type of friendship), you can put a little work into your own space. Luckily, a little often goes a long way. A little clutter is common, but if you have enough clutter that you feel uncomfortable (and everyone has their own comfort level with this) you would do well to take a few chunks of time and devote your efforts to de-cluttering and organizing.
With a long winter ahead, I can guarantee you’ll enjoy your space more when you unclutter.
Here are some ideas to create a less-cluttered, less-stressful environment:
- De-clutter for 15 minutes each night, and you’ll make amazing progress in mere days
- De-clutter one room at a time, and get your whole house clean after only a few sessions
- When you’re on the phone, work on de-cluttering a tabletop or corner of a messy room
- Put on music as you clean—the time goes by faster and you have more energy
- Create organizational systems so you don’t have to de-clutter repeatedly
