A tidy home can benefit your health
Many homes are full of stuff. Getting to grips with all this is not always easy.
It might even seem like Herculean task at times. However, living in a organised and tidy flat, or an organised and tidy house, is the be-all and end-all, especially when it comes to your mental health.
This is how psychologists see it
The experts say: It is extremely uncommon for people to part ways with an object they have developed an emotional attachment to. Moreover, people tend to buy things instead of, for example, borrowing them or using items that are already available to them.
When people do this, they will look for additional storage opportunities in their own four walls, instead of looking for ways to best get rid of things.
A little clutter might inspire the brain to think more creatively. However, pure chaos at home has negative effects: It makes you eat less healthy, it makes you help people less, and makes you less open to new things. The subconscious effect clutter has on people is really quite strong.
The brain feels stressed, annoyed, less secure, and simply less happy. Getting yourself to do things is significantly easier in a tidy flat than an untidy flat where people tend to put things off.
The result is a vicious cycle. In very severe cases, this can lead to hoarding, what psychologists call pathological hoarding disorder. LAGERBOX has some crucial tips on how to keep your home tidy.
The LAGERBOX decluttering tips
The first tip is this: Assign a specific location to every object. This helps maintain a clutter-free space by ensuring items are always stored where they belong. We also recommend creating themed locations.
An example: A drawer for old memories, a corner for your photography equipment or other technical accessories, a place for putting cosmetics, and so on. Another thing: If you have kids living in your house or flat, you have to try and apply this principle in a playful way.
Here’s our second tip: Don’t see tidying up as a chore. If you develop a positive attitude towards tidying up, it will be much easier for you to get seemingly annoying things done. Focus on the positive side of things:
After taking out the rubbish, for example, you can now use the bin properly and don’t have to try and squeeze everything into the full one. Even without incredible multitasking skills, you could try and do some dusting or tidying up while you’re on the phone. That way you can accomplish several things at once. At the beginning of your journey to more tidiness, you could use Post-it notes to remind yourself of things. There will come a point where you remind yourself without any help.
The third tip: Piling is not tidying. The only time you should only pile your belongings is when you’re sorting out what to keep and what to throw away while decluttering. This also applies to clothes you wear every day. Try not to pile those either. Especially if you want to wear individual pieces for a second time.
The fourth tip: Buy practical furniture. Your apartment or house needs furniture and shelves that are good for putting things away. And you need plenty of them, too, because you don’t want to stuff everything into one piece of furniture. It will look messy.
Tip number five: Stay vigilant. In the end, it’s all psychological. Once you have established order within your own four walls, it is essential to avoid slipping back into old patterns and focus on preserving your organisation.
The ultimate tip: Self-Storage
Maybe you tried decluttering, but there are still many things you don’t want to or can’t throw away. If the space in your home is limited, there is another solution. It’s self-storage.
Rent a storage unit in the size you require and use it store all the things you don’t need in your home on a daily basis.
The self-storage concept is originally from the US but is increasingly used in Germany, too. We at LAGERBOX cater to over 16,000 customers at 32 locations. Putting things into storage will create more space in your home. And less clutter.
