Before you decide to switch to a smaller home, you have to decide how much space or stuff you need to be comfortable and functional. Bigger homes require a lot of time and expense to upkeep.
With the high cost of living and big mortgages, many people are switching to smaller homes. With a little creativity and some organizing ideas, you can learn how to live in a small space.
After organizing others and living in a small space myself, I learned a few tricks and tips on how to comfortably live in a limited space.
Take inventory of your things
Arm yourself with a clipboard, pen and comfortable shoes and take a walk through your home. Visit every room in your house, including your attic, garage, basement and outside shed. Write down the things you have but not using it. Pay attention to duplicates of clothes, dishes, tools and toys.
Plan to purge
It’s normal to feel sad, angry or frustrated to part with things you paid money for, were given to you, or you want to pass on to your kids or grandkids. Another excuse for keeping the stuff that many people use is “I might need it in the future.”
Many times, people keep things because they will fix them one day. From my experience as a professional organizer, that doesn’t happen very often.
If you crave freedom from being restricted by your possessions, you have to push past your mental block to experience the freedom of living with less.
Create zones in your space
If you have a limited space, one room can serve many purposes. Creating zones within the room will help you to separate the spaces, define their function and make it easier to keep them organized.
For example, I live in a one bedroom apartment. I divided one room into three zones. The work zone, the living room and the kitchen zone.
Make use of vertical space
When you’re lacking horizontal space, the only way to go is up. Instead of free-standing furniture in your office, use shelving attached to the wall. Install a pegboard on the wall to hold your office supplies or anything else you need. Mount some attractive metal hooks to hang your clothes, purses, bags, et cetera.
Increase closet space
Sometimes we complain about the lack of closet space even if we have plenty of it. The reasons could be that you have clothes going back to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau era, and too many different sizes, just in case you lose weight.
My suggestion would be to keep one extra size and sell the rest or give it away.
To live comfortably in a small space, you have to be ruthless with decluttering your possessions. Choose the lifestyle of many people in the qathet region. Boating, fishing, gardening, crafting or just disappearing in nature is a better choice. Fighting the clutter war with your stuff is no winning situation.
Change your pessimistic attitude to reach your optimistic altitude.
When you are ready to move forward to a purposeful and peaceful life, contact me. Together we can slay the beast.
Ranka Burzan owns a professional organizing company based in the qathet region and has written several books on reducing clutter and becoming more organized. For information, go to solutionsorganizing.com.
