When is the Best Time to Declutter?

“if I just had the time” is the number one excuse for not de-junking. You do have the time, lots of it, all you’re ever going to have. The only question is whether you are going to use it or not. Time is allotted equally to every person on earth. No one has an excuse not to declutter.

Decluttering takes no license, no practice, no permission or permit, and no extraordinary coordination. You can dejunk while listening, visiting, resting, and watching television.

The excuse that you are “too busy” is too miserable an excuse even to bring up. The reported burden of being “busy” only serves as notice of the fact that you have superior alternatives. I see it happen all the time with busy people; a single sentence of the right words is spoken, and they have all the time in the world. The best time to dejunk is when you are busy. If you are unbusy, you have no momentum in your soul. When you are just “hanging around:’ you tend to hang on to what is there. But when you are buried under problems, assignments, pressures, and demands, you are in a perfect frame of mind to master map your way to clutter freedom. You won’t delay or debate forever because you must make every move count. You will get to it and get it done. Why do you think there is a saying, “ If you want to get something done, ask a busy person”? Busy time is the best time to shed those unwanted shelves of stuff paralyzing your living pattern. Busy is the best time to battle emotional withdrawal pangs, too.

The time you could devote to dejunking: weekends, Holidays, vacations, Leave of absence. Personal days, snow days, or rainy days while you are in between jobs. And when you set aside a chunk of time for decluttering, don’t fall into the trap of spending most of the time deciding to do it—instead of doing the deed.

Is there a specific time, hour, or day of the week to begin decluttering? I say no. Just try to do a little every day. In our book “Are You a Junkaholic? We have a forty-day schedule for becoming clutter-free, but we also say it is okay to stop and start depending on your feelings and energy level. The important thing is to keep going. Once you start, I promise you won’t have to force yourself to keep going; you will look forward to it!

You can’t put life on hold, so you don’t find time you make it! Happy decluttering!