Making decluttering fun
One of the big barriers to decluttering and getting organised is boredom.
For most people the prospect of sorting laundry, tidying counter tops, or going through old junk stashed away in the loft is hardly exciting. And our brains don’t much fancy getting stuck into boring tasks, not when you could be doing… literally anything else instead!
So our brains convince us that we don’t need to tackle those tasks, and we put them off, and we put them off...
But what if you could make those tasks just a little bit more interesting?
“Gamification” is about bringing elements of a game (point scoring, rules of play, competition etc.) to any task to make it more appealing. And since games aren’t just for kids, here are a few of my favourites for you to try out to break the boredom and procrastination cycle:
Colour wheel
Pick a colour and find ten items in that colour that you no longer use and could easily move on. Work your way through the rainbow, or start with your favourite / least favourite colour.
Beat the tune
Put your favourite song on and see how many misplaced items you can put back where they belong before the song finishes. Get competitive and play it with someone else in your house and see who can rehome the most items each time. Or see if you can beat your own score with each song on your playlist.
ABC
Working in alphabetical order, find one item per letter of the alphabet that you could let go of today.
Race against time
Set a stop-watch to see how quickly you can complete your least favourite chore. This one can work really well for encouraging kids to help fold laundry - pitting you against them to see who can ball the most socks in the shortest time!
Win a treat
List out six of your favourite treats (spoiler: ‘buying stuff’ can’t be one of them!), and six decluttering or organising tasks that you want to make a start with. Roll a dice to find out which treat you are playing for, then roll again to see which task you need to make a start on to ‘win’ the treat.
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