Attractive and tempting advertising campaigns say it’s time to buy new clothes, accessories, toys, gifts or household items from time to time and especially during festive seasons and memorable occasions. Do we really need to get so many items in our closets and our homes? Are we keeping too many things with us which are not essential?
While buying goods may produce a feel-good sensation that lasts for a short while, the accumulation which takes up our precious living space, and the waste they became after being set aside can take hundreds or thousands of years to decompose. The action of ‘decluttering’ seems to be the way out – and that will help us to rethink and live a more sustainable lifestyle, create less waste, save resources, save money and time. The Campus Sustainability Office, therefore, invited Ms Vincy Tam (nicknamed Orange) of JuppUk Decluttering to pay a visit to PolyU and she had some fruitful dialogues with over 200 staff and students on how decluttering can help.
Holding a NAPO Specialist Certificate in Residential Organizing and Workplace Productivity, Orange has been offering professional consultation to those who need a big hand to declutter their homes. With some practical examples and real-life experiences, she elaborated and guided the participants some easy ways to declutter their homes. In her eyes, decluttering is much more than throwing everything to the trash bins. She suggested that a ‘good’ decluttering experience requires our efforts to take an inventory of our possessions and sort them objectively. We need to make a careful assessment of our items and decide whether we truly need them in our everyday life. We need to cut out the unnecessary junk and pick the things that truly matter in the end. And it is utterly important that we have to make goals and set rules for ourselves and follow them as best as we can to manage our stuff.
The action of decluttering embraces more than strategies in taking care of our homes and getting rid of our excessive belongings. It extends far to a lifestyle that puts more emphasis on living and less on having. It suggests some values that fit into a sustainable way of living – we can lead a simpler life and be friendlier to the environment by owning less and throwing less.
