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number of people asked me why I was so upfront in my last article about packing too much fat in my mid-section. Well, they'€™re in for another surprise now: I'€™m going to be upfront about my other shortcoming '€” too much clutter on the home front.

Now, now, before you start imagining some sort of high-rise pigsty, allow me to clarify that my abode has never been humbled to the point of an intervention from Clean House, the popular TV show about a crew decluttering and redecorating an overrun household. It'€™s not like I had clothes strewn all over the place '€” thanks to frequent garage sales, my wardrobe department has always been pretty tidy.

But other types of clutter I have accumulated. Bit by bit, a small pile sprouted in certain corners '€” at first they seemed harmless, able to be tidied up in just a couple of minutes.

Yet those couples of minutes were inevitably spent on other pressing matters like surfing the Net, sugaring donuts or sleeping in. There always seemed to be better things to do or more interesting people to meet. I even reasoned at some point they were creative clutter needed for my writing process.

Yet just as gradually as the clutter piling up, I started losing things. To my horror, important documents went missing. I finally looked around and admitted my place was, by any definition, cluttered. I could see it, I could feel it and I was physically bothered by it.

Yet I struggled to pull myself out. I'€™d clean out a drawer one day and sort out a cabinet one weekend, only to give up for a while. I bought storage boxes, ironically to see them forming a new clutter pile. Then the real motivation kicked in earlier this year '€” some friends were coming from overseas in spring to stay with me.

Boy, did I clean up like I'€™d never cleaned up before. While my couch and chairs were getting reupholstered, I rolled out the yoga mat to sit on and brought out every pile in the vicinity to sort. I went through documents from previous jobs, postcards and letters throughout the years, pictures from a host of events, even press releases.

I braved some forgotten corners and discovered, gasp, unopened souvenir bags from yesteryear trips. Sitting on a thin yoga mat for long can be uncomfortable, but I soldiered on for days until I had dug through every pile and assigned every single item to one of three categories; keep, donate, toss.

And as cliché as it may sound, there was an undecipherable sense of relief every time I lugged out a big box of things to give or throw away. Indecipherable, but not unreal. My apartment felt lighter, brighter, better and somewhat healthier '€” something I proudly showed off to the visiting friends.

I'€™m hardly the only person testifying to the divine post-decluttering sense of relief. In her best-selling 2010 book, The Joy of Less, Francine Jay summarized her popular blog on minimalism into a clear-cut set of instructions on how to declutter your home and free your life.

While I didn'€™t toe her entire line of sorting out and sending away, I subscribed to the idea that accumulated junk could own your life. Through my own process I recognized certain hoarding tendencies: cute socks, colorful greetings cards and hardcover books. Nowadays, when I reach out for those items at a store, I stop myself. I know I'€™ve got enough of them to last half a lifetime.

Recently a similar manifesto came out from Japan and soon became a global best-seller. Marie Kondo'€™s The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up unapologetically doled out a more militant technique to declutter with the magical question of '€œDoes this thing spark joy?'€ and the insistence that all purging must be done at one go, disallowing hesitance and the '€œmaybe later'€ pile. Some of her approaches, like bowing thanks to purged items, may be too Zen-like for many, but her organizing logic is applicable to most of us.

Most of us who really want to cleanse ourselves off junk, I should add. At the end of the day, it goes back to your own mind. Accumulation takes place when your mind gets too attached to things, so now you need to train it to detach. To let go.

As for me, I didn'€™t stop after the visiting friends left. Now that the place is neat, I can see what it actually needs. I had some walls repainted last week and scheduled the curtains to be laundered this week. I noticed walls that could use framed pictures, and finally bought fresh cut flowers again.

People talk about Ramadhan as the holy month of detoxing your body, purging your sins and cleansing your soul. I guess I'€™ve taken an early start through decluttering. So, yes, clutter, beware the holy cleansing month.