Clutter

I hate clutter. After Matt and I got married and moved into our first apartment, I tried to fill every available space with picture frames, books and magazines, candles, figurines...you name it. While letting me decorate however I wanted to, Matt would tell me how much he really preferred surfaces to be clear and free from all the "stuff" I liked to sit out. Somehow over the last 5 years, I have come to completely agree with him. I love the clean, minimalistic look, and dislike having anything that I don't use or wear or like take up room. We regularly take boxes of stuff to Goodwill, the library, or the dumpster - I actually think we both get more of a thrill of getting stuff out of our house than bringing new stuff in. We're weird, I know.

A blog/website that I read often is Unclutterer. They have tips for organizing and I thought this post was really good. It said that a good question to ask when deciding what stays and what goes is:

Does this make my life better?

The emphasis is on the present tense of does - not did, could, or should it make my life better, but does it? The article sums it up with:

So often we hold onto things because they were once meaningful or because we think we might need them at some undetermined point in the future or because we worry about what other people will think if we get rid them. Asking the straightforward, “Does this make my life better?” allows you to avoid these cluttering scenarios and instead focus on the present.