Dubai company helps clients declutter their lives

Mita Srinivasan, left, and Shelina Jokhiyam, the owner of Decluttr Me, sort through a pile of paperwork. Sarah Dea / The National

We all have that pair of jeans we hold on to for the day we lose some weight and a pointless stack of year-old magazines that's taking up a little too much space. Somehow, however, we just cannot seem to let go of such things. Now you don't have to – in true UAE style, you can pay someone to come into your home and do it for you.
Decluttr Me is a Dubai-based professional decluttering and organising company for both home and office. Set up by the former legal counsel Shelina Jokhiya from the UK, for an initial consultation fee of Dh99 and an hourly rate of Dh299 the company can help you to gain more physical space by sorting through your belongings and discarding whatever is no longer used. Following this, it also helps you organise whatever is left for a clutter-free life.
Jokhiya. 35, says that many people need help in sorting through their apartments but have no idea where to start. "A lot of clients and people in the UAE retain items and never throw them away for sentimental reasons," she says. "They then realise that there is too much clutter in their lives but are unsure of what to get rid of in order to clear it."
Jokhiya works closely with her clients and provides a sounding board in order to help them tackle the decisions of what stays and what goes. She says that the most commonly held-onto items are clothing and, interestingly, broken furniture.
"People believe that they will fix the clothing or furniture at the weekend, but it never happens and the items end up gathering dust or sitting in a wardrobe. If you haven't fixed the item within two months, you never will, so throw it away. The same goes with clothing – if it doesn't fit, throw it," she advises. "When you do lose or gain weight, you can buy new items of clothing, which will be in fashion and make you feel good."
So why is it so difficult for us to get rid of personal belongings that are no longer of use to us? According to Saliha Afridi, a clinical psychologist and the director of The LightHouse Arabia, this is due to an underlying anxiety that we feel when we need to throw out those old curtains that we haven't used in years. "Individuals associate a sentimental value to things and see them as unique or irreplaceable. They think if they throw the item away, they will throw away a memory or time in their life," she explains.
For those who are severely disorganised or diagnosed as hoarders, Afridi argues that it's not enough to have someone come in and declutter their home – it is essential to change their attitudes to acquiring and getting rid of their stuff. "Cognitive behavioural therapy may help with this," says Afridi. "I think it's helpful for people to go through their things twice a year or once a quarter if they have a chance and throw or give things away."
Mita Srinivasan, a Dubai-based Indian PR professional, recently had Decluttr Me organise her home. The 57-year-old says that sometimes it becomes quite difficult to make the hard decision to throw things away, so using a professional helped her to get an outside perspective. "It is quite cathartic. There is a feeling of great satisfaction and achievement seeing a tidy kitchen or a cupboard that is organised," she says.
But there are some items that we can never bring ourselves to get rid of. For Srinivasan, it is her photographs. "I have a lot of old photographs that I really should digitise, but there is something about the old black-and-white photographs of family members that evoke a lot of nostalgia," she says.
According to Afridi, there may be something behind the saying "out with the old, in with the new", and if you're looking for a fresh start, perhaps decluttering will help you usher in a new era. "If we live cluttered lives, we can be sure we have blocks in other parts of our lives as well. And it is a law of the universe: if we have filled our life with things we don't need, we won't have any space for the things we want," she says.  
For more information on Decluttr Me, visit www.decluttrme.com
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Going it alone? Decluttering tips from Shelina Jokhiya, the owner of Decluttr Me
1 Take one room at a time.
2 Do not attempt to clear all the rooms in your home in one weekend unless you don't want any sleep.
3 A good place to start is the bathroom, as it is a small space and it's also easier to create storage items there.