A cluttered environment can cause stress and anxiety, and affect productivity

If you are struggling with space in your house, office or desk, if your cupboards/racks are full and you are running out of storage space and things are lying around everywhere in your house, office, or desk, Decluttering is the session you must attend.

As festival season is around the corner and time for the annual cleaning ritual, the FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO), Hyderabad Chapter organised a session ‘Let’s Spark Joy’, a declaring session organised with Gayatri Gandhi, a Delhi-based expert, founder of Founder of Joy Factory, a start-up.

Giving her opening remarks, Ritu Shah, Chairperson of FLO Hyderabad said that the session is not just about tidying up spaces; it’s about aligning our environment with our spirit and understanding that every object in our lives should spark joy.

The idea is not to have the least number of things but to have only those things that truly add value, meaning, and joy to one’s life, Ritu said.

Gayatri Gandhi, an ex-media professional, who ended her lucrative career at Discovery Networks, India’s First KonMari Certified Master Consultant conducted ‘Let’s Spark Joy’ a Workshop on Mastering the Art of Decluttering.

A cluttered room, home, office, or desk makes a cluttered mind. They mean negative energy. A neat and clean place means a lot of positive energy. Yet we don’t follow, said Gayatri addressing a 100-plus gathering on Saturday evening at Hotel Park at Somajiguda.

What is clutter? If you find things that are no longer useful, that is clutter, she said. Cluttered space will have a profound impact on the mind, she said.

The KonMari Method encourages people to get rid of items that no longer have a purpose and keep items that are purposeful and meaningful. In simple words, the KonMari Method is a process to clean and tidy a house which is everyone’s dream, she said.

KonMari Method was developed by Marie Kondo, also known as KonMari, a Japanese organizing consultant, author, and TV presenter. She developed it at the age of 19 and now she is 37, and her ideas, and plans of organising things found traction all over the world, she said. Today, Marie is a renowned tidying expert helping people around the world transform their cluttered homes into spaces of serenity and inspiration, she added.

Gayatri who goes to many corporates, IIMs and organisations of great reputation across the country shared many insights into the subject.

Clutter causes stress and anxiety and makes it difficult for us to relax both mentally and physically. The chaos of clutter restricts our ability to focus and process information. It gives a busy signal to the brain and reduces efficiency and it triggers constant feelings of guilt, she explained.

The KonMari method advises organising things in categories. She gave an order such as 01. Clothes, 02. Books, 03. Papers, 04. Miscellaneous items and lastly Sentimental items. This is the order in which you need to prioritise in organising things, she said.

Keep and organise such things and ways that spark joy, she said. The purpose of our life is to be happy. So, organise things that give you happiness. You may donate those things or clothes that served you and allow them to serve their purpose for the less fortunate, she said.

She demonstrated how to fold clothes and organise various things in the kitchen, rooms, offices and desks. The expensive and traditional clothes can be organised the same way our mothers have been doing, she said. The Indian way of folding and keeping them is good, she said.

If you don’t declutter and organise things, you don’t remember what you own and you end up buying the same things many times, Gayatri said. The Kitchen countertop has to be empty, she informed me.

Many items that help in organising things in a systematic manner are available in IKEA and Amazon, she said.

She gave a list of products for an effective kitchen such as Wire Baskets, Pan Holder, Acrylic Trays, Cutlery Trays, Lazy Susan, IKEA Variera Box and Shelf Risers.