Many years ago, I wrote an article titled ‘Establishing Boundaries’. The gist of the article was to establish boundaries for storage, use of yours, and other members of your family’s belongings, out of respect for one another. This post is related, but in a different way. Creating boundaries for your things has another important reason.
Creating boundaries for your things lets you know when you have enough of the category of items contained in that space, or boundary. This concept is an important aspect to avoid clutter.
The concept of creating boundaries for your things, brings me back to a topic that I’ve written about before, the one in, one out rule. The one in, one out rule is basic in its simplicity – when you acquire an item like another item, or similar to that item, discard one, or more of that same item.
An example of the one in, one out rule, would be when a pair of black pants in your closet wears out, doesn’t look good on you, or doesn’t fit, and you buy another one to replace it, then you discard the existing pair. You’re creating boundaries for the number of black pants that live in the space you allotted for that category.
Another example is receiving a monthly magazine and removing the previous month’s issue whether you read it or not. You are adhering to the principal of creating boundaries for your things. The result is that you have eliminated a potential pile of magazines that could become clutter.
In the black pants scenario, you eliminated a packed closet where you can’t see everything you have, and where your clothes aren’t wrinkled since they aren’t packed in so tight.
Creating boundaries in your spaces for your things not only eliminates clutter, which also eliminates stress, it also provides the peace of mind you gain by having organized spaces.
