Wangeci Kanyeki
The end of year is here and it is amazing how much we accumulate over the years. On most days, family members come home with a thing or two from the supermarkets only to store them and forget.
With time, this consumerism can cause us to accumulate a lot of things. What better time than December to declutter our homes. Decluttering will make your mind clearer before the New Year. The current global fad for living spaces is to have a minimalist lifestyle.
Homes have the bare minimum furniture and furnishings with just enough to make it functional. While this may look clinically sterile to most Kenyans, it does make for easier cleaning and maintenance. A cluttered house requires so much energy to organise.
Below are a few tips to conquer your clutter and make your home a more pleasant and peaceful place. It can be overwhelmingly boring to clear up the entire house at one go. Instead, schedule the clean-up room by room, one closet or drawer at a time. Divide the content into four categories as follows:
For keeps: This is the stuff you must keep. It could be clothes, books, cutlery, crockery that you frequently use. If you have not worn an outfit for more than six months, remove it from this category. Also remove any item that you have been keeping for sentiment’s sake. There is no need to keep all your school books from primary school, which you left 30 years ago.
For storing: These are the items you need but use seasonally. They include camping gear, sleeping bags and travelling bags among others. Arrange them in a closet or storage area in an accessible but tidy format. Keep a sober mind and emotionally detach yourself when uncluttering. Store only what you must keep and what you are sure you need.
For charity: Once you have selected what you will keep in your house and what you will store, it’s time to give away what is no longer useful to you. What you could be bored of or could have no use for could be someone else’s treasure.
Rather than keep items which you hardly use, learn to give them out and share with friends, domestic workers and charity institutions. It is better to give and bless others than for children’s clothes and shoes that have become small to collect dust in your closet for decades.
For selling: There is no harm in making some money from the items you do not use. Advertise using social media or put up a garage sale or a car boot sale on a Sunday afternoon and watch your clutter of old automobile magazines, video tapes and books you are unlikely to re-read turn into money. You never know, the money raised from your garage sale could be used to upgrade your single door fridge to that double door no-frost refrigerator you have been eyeing.
