5 common types of clutter you can find in your home
If you ever wish to stay on top of clutter at home, you need to recognise the different types of items that you call clutter. You have to do this to be able to tackle the task of reducing unnecessary items and freeing some space around your home. There are a few categories of clutter, as described below.
How many of them can you identify in your place?
Stuff you lack storage space for – in an ideal world, you will have free space for everything, and everything will be in its rightful place. Sadly, the reality often proves quite different from this. A lot of your belongings don’t really fit in the category of clutter; they simply lack a home. There are a few examples of this: books that aren’t on the bookshelf, your sports gear sitting on a chair in your room, and many such similar. To address this type of clutter, you obviously need storage space. See if you can store your belongings close to where you use them. If that is not possible, use fitting containers and label them. You can easily store kitchen supplies, books and toys this way. - Trash pretending to be clutter – this is perhaps the simplest kind of clutter to identify and deal with. A lot of items lying around your home, you should just throw out. Food that way passes its expiry date, newspapers and magazines that you have already read are all examples of this kind of clutter. It is a bit trickier for items you haven’t used. For such items, it is best to establish strict rules on how long you keep items. This will also tell you just how much you care about a specific item. For instance, if you have a pair of pants that need a fix, but you delay it for a week or so, then you just don’t value said pants all that much, and you can dispose of them.
- Bargain-haul clutter – if you cannot resist a decent sale, chances are you have brought home a lot of stuff you don’t need. Bargain clutter is in the shops, enticing you with sweet deals and waiting for you to bring it home. Identify such items and resist the urge next time you are checking out shops.
Abundance clutter – if you often buy things in triplicate ‘just in case’, or because you think you need to stock up, then abundance clutter likely fills your home. Some things you are probably going to use, so stocking up isn’t that bad. However, you are best off with little décor, clothing and food. Your tastes may change, leaving you with a bunch of items you aren’t going to use. - Sentimental clutter – your baby blanket, crystal vase gift you got from a relative, your wedding clothes that don’t even fit you and stuff like that are nothing more than sentimental clutter. This is perhaps the hardest clutter to deal with. There are some ways to part with it. For example, pick a few items you want to keep and ditch the rest.
Stuff you lack storage space for – in an ideal world, you will have free space for everything, and everything will be in its rightful place. Sadly, the reality often proves quite different from this. A lot of your belongings don’t really fit in the category of clutter; they simply lack a home. There are a few examples of this: books that aren’t on the bookshelf, your sports gear sitting on a chair in your room, and many such similar. To address this type of clutter, you obviously need storage space. See if you can store your belongings close to where you use them. If that is not possible, use fitting containers and label them. You can easily store kitchen supplies, books and toys this way. 
Abundance clutter – if you often buy things in triplicate ‘just in case’, or because you think you need to stock up, then abundance clutter likely fills your home. Some things you are probably going to use, so stocking up isn’t that bad. However, you are best off with little décor, clothing and food. Your tastes may change, leaving you with a bunch of items you aren’t going to use. Now that you know what type of clutter is present within your home, you can better find ways to deal with it.
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