How to go Minimalist in 2024

HOW TO GO MINIMALIST IN 2024 (DECLUTTER)

PHYSICAL CLUTTER

PARE DOWN TO ESSENTIAL ITEMS. MANAGE THE NUMBER OF POSSESSIONS

• CHOOSE QUALITY OVER QUANTITY

• PURCHASE LESS

• IF YOU BUY SOME TAO, YOU MUST TOSS SOMETHING YOU HAVE. "ONE IN-ONE OUT"

DIGITAL CLUTTER

YOUR DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT IS EITHER PRODUCING CLARITY OR COMPLEXITY.

• CHOOSE CLARITY

• TURN OF NOTIFICATIONS

• STREAMLINE CONNECTIONS

• MANAGE WORKFLOW

• MINIMIZE APPS

FINANCIAL CLUTTER

SIMPLIFY YOUR FINANCES

• USE YOUR MONEY TO BUY THE

• CANCEL UN-USED SUBSCRIPTIONS

• AUTOMATE BILL PAYMENTS

• PAY OFF DEBT

• BUDGET (50/30/20) RULE ⇐ % NEEDS, 30% WANTS, 20% SAVING

TIME CLUTTER

CREATE UNSTRUCTURED, OPEN SPACE IN YOUR LIFE.

• BLOCK OUT TIME

• TAKE BREAK FROM SOCIAL MEDIA $ NEWS.

• ACCEPT FEWER MEETINGS

• MAKE "NO" YOUR DEFAULT

RELATIONSHIP CLUTTER

EVALUATE YOUR RELATIONSHIPS

• SPEND MORE TIME WITH PEOPLE WHO GIVE YOU ENERGY

• SPEND LESS TIME WITH PEOPLE WHO STEAL ENERGY

• BLOCK OUT TME TO BE ALONE

Why Does Clutter Affect Our Well-Being?

Clutter affects our emotional and physical well-being in numerous ways:

Being in a cluttered, disorganized environment can compromise your attention, concentration, and focus — and even drain your cognitive resources, according to research based on the results from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. Moreover, living in a cluttered space is associated with self-reports of reduced productivity and more chronic procrastination, according to a studycoauthored by Dr. Roster.

“Clutter reflects an overabundance of possessions that collectively create chaotic and disorderly living spaces,” explains Joseph Ferrari, PhD, the study’s lead author and a professor of psychology at DePaul University in Chicago. “Clutter is often the result of an overattachment to our personal items, which makes it difficult to part with them. It isn’t abundance that’s the problem as much as attachment to abundance.”

Clutter at Home May Lower Happiness and Make Us Feel Less Secure

Of course, the office isn’t the only place you’ll find clutter. Clutter in the home can negatively impact your life as well. In another paper that includes Ferrari and Roster as authors, survey responses from adults in the United States and Canada revealed that clutter can have a negative effect on subjective well-being and happiness. Though “home” is typically considered a safe and secure place, clutter compromises some of that security, according to the survey responses.

“When there’s lots of clutter, you lose control over your physical environment, which is very defeating and can bring on stress, depression, or anxiety,” Roster says.

Indeed, one study examined how family members talked about their living environments in the Los Angeles area. Women who described their homes as being more cluttered had increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol and greater depressed mood throughout the day compared with women who described their homes as more restful and restorative. (Men did not experience the same stress or mood disruptions based on their home environment; researchers suggested that women may feel a higher level of responsibility for the home.) It’s important to note that the causal relationship of the results is unclear: They could be because clutter leads to higher stress, stress from external factors leads to more clutter, or a mix of both. 

Clutter can also be a safety hazard if there are items or wires on the floor that someone can trip over, or a health hazard if your piles of stuff have become magnets for dust or bugs. In addition, clutter can become a source of tension or friction between people in the same household — especially if they have different ideas about what’s acceptable when it comes to tidiness.

Even your social life can be affected, if it gets to the point of embarrassment where you won’t have people over, Roster says.

Finally, there’s even some evidence that, over time, being in a cluttered space could affect your eating habits: A study found that participants who spent time in a chaotic, messy kitchen ate more provided cookies than those in a neater kitchen. However, the study also found that recalling a time the participants felt in control caused them to eat fewer cookies in the messy kitchen, suggesting that mindset can mediate cravings in a chaotic space.