There’s clutter everywhere, overflowing drawers, bursting cupboards, overloaded coat rack, a disorganised jumble of boxes and things everywhere. We feel like we live in chaos sometimes, this is when we know it’s time to declutter your home.
Having looked into the subject I kept coming across minimalism – owning only what is needed and discarding what is not. It looked to me like an extreme lifestyle choice, uncompromising and strict, making a living space feel cold, unloved, and unhomely. It may be a choice for some people but not me.
A compromise is decluttering, which is a happy middle ground, between living in a mess and minimalism. This would lead to living in a usable space and having the freedom to make your own choices, but as with any worthwhile task we need a plan.
What is your decluttering goal?
Why are you decluttering? This is one of the most important questions you need to ask yourself, it could be to make space for something else coming into your life, a baby, partner or a new item of furniture. It may be to make the place look better, be more usable or because you’re moving house.
It’s important to know why you’re doing something, having a goal helps focus our efforts. So, identify where you are and where you want to be, with identifiable and achievable tasks. But this sounds like a chore, is it really worth the effort?
The benefits of decluttering
There are so many benefits to decluttering your living space, here are a selection:
- Less stuff to keep clean, tidy up and look after.
- It makes the spaces you have look bigger and creates a more pleasant and livable space.
- You lose or misplace your stuff less often.
- A reduction in your level of stress and anxiety.
- It helps to eliminate distractions to achieve more.
- By knowing what you own, you may make more sensible purchasing choices.
- It provides you with a sense of achievement.
We have an idea of our goal, the benefits we can gain, now we need to develop some sort of strategy to achieve it.
Developing a strategy to declutter your home
Decluttering can be a big job, breaking it down makes it less overwhelming and more achievable. Here are some strategies to make the process of decluttering more achievable.
Break it down into smaller tasks – make a list of all the rooms that need decluttering, then make a list of the areas within those rooms which need decluttering, this can be broken down into smaller and smaller jobs, for example: living room, set of drawers, top drawer.
Set an achievable time scale – be truthful with yourself and set a time limit for decluttering, even a couple of minutes to begin with will achieve more than procrastinating about it, a few minutes can help you build momentum, once you start something you’re more likely to finish it.
Aim for an item a day – if setting a time scale doesn’t appeal or is impractical, try to get rid of one or two items a day.
Declutter a room a week – if you need to complete the job quicker and have more time available you could tackle something bigger in one go, either complete a room a week or a floor a week, whatever suits you, but be aware if the job feels overwhelming it’s more likely you’ll procrastinate and get frustrated than if you broke it down into manageable chunks.
Declutter your home decisions
Deciding what to get rid of can be a challenge, if you’re struggling here are some tips you could apply to your decluttering challenge:
- Ask the opinion of others, their opinion can help you get rid of old items you’ve been hesitant to discard, they don’t have any emotion with regards to your possessions, so they may help you to be cold and calculating when getting rid of stuff.
- Be honest with yourself, when was the last time you used the item, will you ever use it? If you haven’t used it for over a year and you can’t see a time it will be used in the near future then get rid of it.
- Get rid of duplicates or very similar items such as clothing and crockery, especially when they’re items that last for along time and are relatively cheap to replace.
- Sell what you can, but be truthful, will you sell it or will it hang around for ages. Don’t worry about the price you paid for an item, it’s a sunk cost and we value our possessions more highly than others, so be realistic.
- Recycle or throw away things that are broken, outdated or have no value.
- Donating or gifting items is always a better alternative if the item is of value to other people, it’s good for the planet and helps others benefit from your unwanted items, you also get that feel good factor.
You’ve done a great job and all the things within your house that you no longer need have been disposed of, but what happens if the place is still cluttered and all the items that remain have a purpose and value.
Decluttered, but still cluttered
If you’ve followed the advice in this blog and nothing more can go then the next best option is better storage and better organisation of your things.
Think of storage solutions to organize the items you have, is there another way to store them, get creative about your space. There are lots of storage solutions available out there from containers, to bespoke built in storage systems to pre-fabricated units. Here are a few more suggestions to get you started:
- Storage boxes to help save space, vacuum bags are a great solution for clothing, curtains and bedding.
- Put up shelving or use hanging storage options.
- Use hooks for items to hang in unused areas.
- Locate and use unused spaces such as above kitchen cabinets.
Habits to keep your house clutter free
Your place is looking good, decluttered and everything put in its place or stored away neatly. This is the point when you’ve achieved what you wanted to achieve, but it’s a time to have some strategies to keep it that way.
To do this you need to keep on top of it and stop clutter accumulating again, pay attention to surfaces and storage places and problem areas.
Put things away, each item should have its proper place, when items start to accumulate on surfaces it starts to look messy, also when you use something make sure it’s put away afterwards.
When making a purchase, think twice:
1. Is it needed? Really?
2. Is it an upgrade?
3. If it is get rid of the inferior item.
4. Is it just too much of a bargain not to buy it? You may not have, or may never have a need for it.
5. Is it an impulse buy?
6. Is there an emotional reason for buying it? Boredom, feeling sad or just as a feel good purchase.
List your items so you know what you have, this is useful for sticking to the general rule of one in one out – when you get a new item get rid of the old one, this prevents you accumulating lots of the same or similar items.
Follow these simple rules and your house will stay clutter free.
So to summarise…
What have we discovered? A number of methods to declutter our homes without going to the extreme of making the place minimalist, cold and feeling unloved.
We firstly asked ourselves why we want to declutter and what do we want to achieve, which led to us developing our goal. This helped us see where we were and where we want to be.
After discovering our goal we identified benefits of decluttering, useful if our motivation lessens or we struggle to get started. We can focus on our goal and the benefits we will enjoy.
How we would achieve our goals and the decisions that had to be made is an essential part of this process, some ways to achieve our goals have been provided along with some of the decisions which have to be made along the way. Motivation is important to achieve these goals, even when it dwindles you can reignite it.
We looked at what we could do if we had done an amazing job decluttering, but there was still clutter. This meant that we couldn’t get rid of anything else because everything that remained was required. So alternatives to decluttering were explored.
Lastly we explored how habits could be adopted to prevent the place getting cluttered again, simple habits which once adopted would save having to do a big clear out again.
We now have some useful tips and techniques for making our living spaces enjoyable to live in. It has a positive impact on our lives because we seek a sense of order, and one of the few things we have control over is our own personal spaces, so make them organised, airy and beautiful.