The trend for “living small” continues to grow. That includes less square footage, less expenses and less stuff.
Until I downsized a few years ago, I didn’t understand what people meant when they described how freeing it was to live small.
They were right.
In the past two years, I haven’t missed the stupidly high property taxes, outrageous utility bills and all of the other things I left behind in my old house. Now I’m the one saying that living with less can be freeing…and I’m saying it often.
Is the extra stuff in your home office keeping you from being productive, causing you stress or holding you hostage? Today or sometime this weekend, take 15 minutes to decide what you don’t need to keep in your home office, or at all. There are a few things you can do to get started.
- 1) Take three bags and label them toss, donate and other room. The last bag keeps you from leaving your home office and getting distracted.
2) Put old magazines and newspapers that you’ve already read or know you’ll never read, in the toss bag. If you like to store a year’s worth of magazines at a time, keep them in magazine holders.
3) Take extra supply holders, stacking trays and anything else you bought to help you get organized — but didn’t work — and put them in the donate bag.
4) Fill the other room bag with anything that somehow made it into your home office but belongs somewhere else in your home.
5) Take out duplicates, broken equipment and anything else that you haven’t used within the last year or two. If you haven’t used it by now, you probably won’t use it.
You can spend hours or days sorting through everything in your home office — many people do — but the goal is to spend short bursts of time each week to get rid of excess stuff. The freeing feeling is an added bonus.
