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If your living space looks like this, there are shopping habits you can change to help declutter your life. Photo: Alamy

How to declutter your home and mind by shopping differently

  • If you can separate the things that make you happy from those that weigh you down, you are on the way to a decluttered life
  • Try changing your habits to avoid overshopping and buying on impulse
Wellness

Consumption contributes to clutter and disorganisation, but telling someone to just stop shopping is not a realistic solution.

A dietitian advises clients on how to lose weight and how to keep the weight off by making lifestyle changes. Similarly, people can purge their belongings in an effort to organise their home, but they will be back in the same spot months later if they don’t fundamentally change their behaviour.

The habits around what we buy are complex, and the line between what we need and what we want is blurry. Real progress in decluttering and organisation requires changing our mindsets and rethinking what we value. Which possessions are essential? Which items make us truly happy and which just weigh us down?

Marie Kondo’s popular book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”, now a Netflix series, differentiates which possessions are valuable and which we can part with because they don’t “spark joy.” But I would argue it’s even more important to make those decisions when you’re online or in a store so everything surrounding you is something you need, use and enjoy. Here are three strategies.
The cover of Kondo’s book.

Understand your motivation

Many people have one or two categories of items they’re inclined to overbuy. For some it is clothing or books, for some it’s food, and for others it may be office supplies. Take time to consider why you feel compelled to buy those items. Do you like the way it feels to buy a new shirt or a new book, do you worry about running out of food, do office supplies help you feel like you have the tools to get yourself organised?

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Be aware of what is motivating you to buy those items and consider forgoing a purchase from time to time, or, at the very least, for every one item you bring into your house, remove one item from the same category. Success breeds success. Once you feel more in control of your buying habits for one category, that can extend to other areas.

Home organiser and decluttering guru Marie Kondo. Photo: Denise Crew, Netflix

Fight ‘just-in-case’ impulses

It’s so easy to buy so many items in so many places – hats and flip flops at the grocery store, food and paper products at the convenience store, office supplies and stationery at the bookstore – that people pile up purchases that fall into the impulse or “just-in-case” category.

We’re not sure whether we really need it, but it’s there, so why not grab it – just to be safe? Or, we tell ourselves, it’s only a few dollars, I’ll probably use it, and if I don’t need it or like it, I’ll just return it. Right? Wrong.

Shopping like this may give you the sense that you’re on top of things, but what you’re really doing is creating more work. If that item is a duplicate, doesn’t fit or you end up disliking it, you’ll have to decide, do I keep it? And if so, where? Or do you give it away? And to whom? Do you return it? Those decisions tend to paralyse people, and the objects end up as clutter. This type of behaviour, multiplied over dozens and dozens of purchases, not only clutters your house, it causes stress.

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Try to avoid impulse purchases and buying items just because they are a good deal or on sale. For some purchases, online or otherwise, give yourself a waiting period. Put the item in your virtual basket and give yourself 24 hours before buying. And if you see something in a store, go home, check to see whether you really need it and spend a day considering whether you really want it. If you answer yes to both, make the purchase.

Think outside the buying box

Instead of immediately buying everything you need or want, consider whether there is another way you could obtain it. Perhaps you could borrow a book from the library, or a power washer that you’ll only use once or twice a year from a neighbour. If you get creative, you can save money and won’t be saddled with so much stuff. Challenge yourself to think differently.

Instead of buying a book, you could borrow it from a library. Photo: Alamy

The term “mental load” became part of the vernacular a couple of years ago, and we think of the concept as the constant list of tasks on our to-do list. But our emotions are also taxed by all the clutter surrounding us. More stuff equals more stuff to organise, more items to clean, more to keep track of and more to eventually throw away, donate or recycle. Make a goal to rethink how much stuff, and stress, you welcome into your home.

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