I’m one of those people who can’t get rid of things for the life of me. Mounds of old sweaters, t-shirts and jeans that I’ve worn far too many times, they were all shoved into overflowing drawers or stuffed into the corners of my closet that I wouldn’t dare to sort through. Along with my hoard of clothes were old books, crumpled receipts and half-filled notebooks that I could never seem to throw out.

While my collections of items grew, I began to get more and more stressed by my clutter.

However, a beacon of light saved me from this chaos: lifestyle improvement shows. I began with binge watching an amazing show on Netflix called “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo,” where her philosophy is that if the item doesn’t bring you joy, you let it go. She has a whole system of tidying up figured out so that your life can be decluttered and items in your life can bring you genuine happiness.

Along with Marie, I also watched hours of YouTube videos about minimalism, re-organizing your bedroom, major decluttering and how to be a more cleanly person.

I was amazed by these people’s abilities to simply do away with things they didn’t need. After binging quite a few episodes of Marie helping people like myself, I felt motivated to thoroughly clean and declutter my living space. I didn’t want to let this feeling of motivation go, so I acted fast and got to work.  

My first goal was to clean out my closet

Following the advice I had been given by Marie and various YouTubers, I threw all of my clothes onto my bed and began to sort through them. Although it took me nearly four hours to finish, I wound up donating four very full trash bags of clothes I no longer needed.

After this process I felt so refreshed, so organized, and my stress from the clutter was finally put to rest.

My messy lifestyle has not been completely transformed, but I’ve noticed myself making a more conscious effort to be organized and clean since watching these shows.

I think that lifestyle improvement shows are an entertaining way to get people excited about cleaning and organizing, a task that usually seems tedious and bothersome. Although not everyone will follow the advice they hold, the shows at least get viewers thinking about ways they could make a positive change in their lives.

These shows serve as inspiration and a source of motivation for viewers, with the hopes of getting people to start making changes in their own lives.