Ok, so you're ready to admit you *might* have a clutter problem. But you just can't seem to get motivated to clear some of it out. It's not that big a deal, right?
Wrong. Clutter negatively impacts our life in more ways than you can imagine. Just for curiosity's sake, let's examine the hidden costs of clutter. We'll look at the dollar costs first.
If you have a 1,500 square foot house worth $300,000, every square foot in the house is worth $200. If you have a 10x10 room you can't get into because of clutter, that's a $20,000 storage room! In terms of monthly cost, you're spending about 7% of your monthly mortgage on storage. Yikes!
Next let's look at your time. Clutter can sap more time out of a day than you might be aware of at first. American spend, on average, one hour per day looking for lost items like shoes, keys, documents, or kids items. That's 7 hours per week, 28 hours per month, or 336 hours per year. That's 2 weeks of your life spent looking for stuff! It's pretty mind boggling when you break it down this way.
Lastly, let's look at the emotional costs of clutter. How many times have you gotten upset, sad, or angry because you couldn't find what you need when you needed it? How much frustration has built up over not having any breathing room in your home? Perhaps even more so than the time and money wasted, clutter causes immense stress in most people which can surface in the form of arguments, health problems, and lost productivity.
As you can see, excess clutter is not only an eyesore, but it really impacts the way we live our life. When people describe how their clutter makes them feel, it's always with the same, negative words. "I feel like I'm drowning in stuff." "I can't breathe in my own home." "My husband and I argue all the time about stupid things revolving around the mess." "The kids are always upset because they don't want to have friends over to our home."