How to Avoid Hoarding – Best Practices

Hoarding or stockpiling so many objects in your home becomes a huge problem when running out of space. As a result, your family will have to live in a cluttered home environment that could seriously affect everyone’s lifestyle. Sadly, a disorganized home morphs into an annoying eyesore. Above all else, it can affect everyone’s outlook and disposition. After all, when the first thing you see upon waking up is clutter, how can you start your day right? Thankfully, you can call us at Jiffy Junk to help you sort your things and deal with junk removal.

If you find yourself overwhelmed with the amount of clutter in your home and need professional assistance to regain control of your space, consider reaching out to junk removal services provided by Jiffy Junk. Our team is experienced in handling various types of clutter, helping you sort, remove, and dispose of items you no longer need. Additionally, if your home requires a thorough cleaning and organization due to accumulated items, our hoarding cleaning services are specifically designed to address the challenges posed by hoarding, providing a compassionate and efficient approach to restoring order and cleanliness to your home.

If you truly love your family, you need to keep your house neat and tidy. Resist the compulsion to buy more things. Remember, if you purchase an item that you don’t even need just because it’s on sale, you are wasting your money. Soon, you shall be surrounded by useless material objects that have no monetary or sentimental value. Keep yourself in check so that you can keep a peaceful home environment for your family. A well-designed and organized house serves as the perfect venue for building happy memories. Now is the time to break your hoarder mentality. 

Noteworthy, hoarders do not fall in the same category as collectors. The latter take pride in the items they collect. They think about their purchases, buying only valuable items. Most of all, they display their collections neatly and appropriately. In contrast, hoarders believe for the sake of buying. They collect trinkets and whatever tickles their fancy for no rhyme or reason. Moreover, they do not organize what they buy, leaving everything untidy. Sadly, studies show that hoarding things you don’t need falls under a psychological condition in the bracket of OCD or obsessive-compulsive disorder. If you want to break this habit, consider the following best practices to help you out.

Make a Full Assessment of Your Belongings

If you are a hoarder who’s in dire need of home clean-up, the first thing you must do is make an assessment. Evaluate your items and make an inventory. The question to ask yourself is not if the object is usable and functional but if you will genuinely have use for it. A good rule of thumb is if you did not have to use the object in six months or a year, you don’t have to keep it. When you haven’t used an item for that long, chances are you can go on living without it. 

Hence, go through your belongings and set up bins for segregation. At Jiffy Junk, we rent containers that help you sort everything out. We can also help you with your junk removal process and dump everything to make your life easy. One of our tried and tested tips is to put up the following categories when sorting:

• Items for donations
• Stuff for keeping
• Trinkets that can be sold
• Objects that can be dumped

Keep your piles below five. If you make too many piles, it will slow you down and derail your process. Remember to go through all your items and make sure you don’t leave anything out. If you want to succeed in this junk removal mission, you must be tough, ruthless, and decisive. 

Do Not Overthink Everything

There’s no room for vacillating over your things. When you know you can no longer use the item, you must push yourself to let it go. If you see duplicate items, trash the extras. For example, there’s no need for you to have three bicycles or two dozen lipsticks. When it comes to junk removal, make concrete decisions so you can unburden your life with the mess that weighs you down. 

If you overthink and take long deciding what to let go of all the items you have, you will never finish. Overthinking assures that the clutter never leaves your home. Keep in mind you are organizing inanimate, material possessions. Hence, do not give these things power over your mind. Exercise mental prowess and control by making swift decisions. Should you take more than a few minutes for each object, you make your life too complicated. 

Instead, make it quick and choose to let things go. Remind yourself to handle only something once and place it in a bin where it belongs. If you keep holding it, putting it back, analyzing, and having it back again, you will never finish your task. For best results, keep your eyes on the prize, refocus on your junk removal goals, and keep things moving along fast. 

Stop Hoarding!

If you don’t want to deal with hoarding and junk removal forever, you need to stop getting lured by sales and discounts. Resist buying the things you do not need. Only stick to essentials so you won’t waste your money on stuff you will not even use. It would help if you do the following:

• Stick to a strict budget.
• Make a list every time you shop.
• Buy things you can truly afford. 
• Analyze if you can live without the purchase.

Be Brave and Prep the Mind 

When you are trying to beat a hoarding problem, it’s not merely about junk removal or tidying up your space. The task at hand is a mental exercise. If you want to win and conquer your challenge, you must be willing to toughen up yourself. Consider the following:

1. Face your fears

If you have a compulsion to hoard things, you have deeply rooted reasons that feed your tick. Ask yourself what you are terrified of? Perhaps, you lived a childhood in poverty, giving you that scarcity mindset that compels you to hoard even if you do not need to. Find out the root of your problem by facing your deep-seethed fears. If you throw your things and do junk removal, how bad and devastating will things be? You could have an irrational fear rooted in your heart, which may very well be the reason you choose to amass objects that have no use. 

1. Be courageous 

When you try to beat a compulsive hoarding habit, you need to be brave. After all, you shall be facing difficult issues that you cannot control. You need tons of courage so that you can continue even amid your fears. Now is the time to make concrete decisions so you can take control of your life. Remind yourself that your possessions cannot control you. Thus, you need to gain the upper hand in this situation. 

1. Exercise patience

Letting go of tons of things will take time. You cannot beat your hoarding compulsion overnight. After all, it took many years to collect your items. Besides, when you add the element of time, you build pressure. So don’t expect to go through your whole house in one day. Though you can be swift and decisive when sorting your piles, you need to be more patient when examining the bigger pictures. It would be best to give yourself time to organize everything, so you don’t get discouraged. It will help if you focus on smaller victories. Instead of beating yourself up over the rooms you haven’t cleaned, pat yourself on the back for the things you have already tackled. 

Tackle One Area at a Time

When you attempt to clean the whole house in one go, you will fizzle and burnout fast. Even our team of experts at Jiffy Junk knows that this process needs a strategy. Hence, junk removal and aiming to clean the whole house in a day is just an impossible mission. Setting unrealistic goals will make you feel overwhelmed. However, if you tackle one room or area at a time, the task will certainly not be as daunting. 

Hence, it would be best to break things down into small tasks. Through this method, you feel more fulfilled and motivated to conquer each small goal. It would help to make a cleaning schedule for each room. Tackle your to-do list following your plan and time frame. This way, the job won’t feel like an arduous chore. With this strategy in place, you will surely succeed as you give yourself more manageable expectations. When you feel like you can handle your home areas, you regain your clarity and control. 

Stay Disciplined and Committed 

Once you decide to perform junk removal and clean your home, stick to your guns. Though the process is challenging, motivate yourself to accomplish it. Strive to keep the ball rolling once you start. Don’t make excuses to stop. If you only have half-an-hour of extra time in your day, seize that opportunity. Just keep on going even when things get rough. 

You must be strict with yourself and exercise discipline to stay the course. If you have to give up watching TV or lazing around checking social media apps, do it. The biggest challenge in your junk removal goal is your head. You may be plagued by self-limiting beliefs that hold you back. But remind yourself you’ve decided to commit to the process and ensure that you make your plans come to fruition. As with anything in life, you have the power to make the substantial changes that you want to see. 

Seek Help From a Supportive Junk Removal Team

If you find it difficult to kick the hoarding habit, seek help from a friend to help you clean and organize your home. Perhaps, speaking to a counselor can also help you figure out deeply rooted issues that cause your compulsion. When you break free from the shackles of your problems, you can break a hoarding habit. 

You can also call us at Jiffy Junk as our fully-vetted team can take broken appliances and unused furniture that don’t add value to your space. Our group implements safe junk disposal so we recycle what we can and safely dispose of garbage. A supportive team assures you can get everything done correctly. 

Prevent the Same Problem

Finally, once you’ve organized your home, you need to make sure you don’t fall back into the same bad habits. It only takes a few weeks for clutter to invade your home. If you want it to be neat and orderly for the long haul, do the following:

1. Make a cleaning schedule and stick to it.

Write down a cleaning plan for your home and paste it somewhere visible for accountability. Having this in black and white assures you stay committed to the program. It would be embarrassing to disappoint yourself. 

2. Keep cleaning supplies for easy access. 

If you have cleaning supplies on hand, you have no excuses not to follow your regular cleaning schedule. Stock up on glass cleaners, dust busters, and the like. With everything accessible, you can keep your home spic and span easily. 

3. Be picky about purchases. 

Learn to resist sales and stick to essentials. Make it a new habit to prioritize your needs over wants. Firstly, you don’t want your family to live in a cluttered home. Secondly, doing so ensures you stay a good role model. Thirdly, buying priorities allows you to save money. Above all, sticking to this new habit means you won’t rack up debt for stuff that clutters your home.

4. Plan for junk removal or central cleaning every quarter.

Apart from sticking to the things on your regular cleaning routine, do a quarterly central cleaning. Let go of stuff that you don’t use, so it doesn’t pile up. Better yet, plan for a junk removal service. With this careful plan in place, clutter will certainly not creep back into your home again. 

Final Wrap Up

Accumulating stuff that clutters your home can also affect your relationships. It can also adversely impact your quality of life. When people no longer want to visit you or your kids feel embarrassed to invite friends over, it is clear that you need intervention. Call a junk removal specialist like our Jiffy Junk team, who’s skilled at hoarding cleanup if you feel overwhelmed. Straightening up your home equates to straightening up your life. You and your loved ones deserve an organized and peaceful place to call home.