Every year we accumulate more and more stuff, scrambling to try and find places to hang, mount, cover and store everything. All of this amounts to one thing: clutter. Clutter is the nemesis of an organized house. Clutter is bad for not only your physical space, but your mental space as well. Clutter creates anxiety and can make you feel like the walls are closing in around you. Here are 5 ways to efficiently declutter your home.
Commit to 5 minutes
Choose an area to focus on and spend 5 minutes per day, for several consecutive days, removing clutter and organizing the space.
Give away items
Trying to aggregate everything you own all at once is too overwhelming. If you are serious about decluttering, commit to finding and giving away one item every day. Do it for a month and see if you like the results. If you feel like 30 days/30 items is not making a dent, try 2 months, or 4 or an entire year. If you get rid of clutter one item at a time, before you know it, you will have cleared out a whole room, or an entire floor.
The closet hanging experiment
This is a rather simple exercise. Hang all of your clothes with the hangers facing the same direction. After an item has been worn, return it to the closet with the hanger facing in the opposite direction to all the others. After a few months, you will have a very clear idea which articles of clothing you actually wear, and which ones are just taking up space.
Make lists
When it comes to pretty much any task, lists are amazing at providing the motivation necessary to actually accomplish it. Make a list of areas in your home to declutter and methodically go about striking them off. It’s ok to start with the easiest area first; once you start, the list will gradually get shorter and shorter.
Know what to keep
Knowing what is truly valuable and useful is as important as knowing what is not. Things with real sentimental and monetary value should be kept. It is easy to get caught up in a purge and end up discarding or giving something away that in retrospect you wish you had kept. There are things in your home that you use every day, as well as heirlooms and keepsakes that mean a lot.
The hardest part of choosing to declutter is starting. Once the wheels are in motion, there is a goal in mind and the whole process just becomes a necessity. Take into consideration the above five suggestions, all at once, or piecemeal, whatever is most comfortable and sort your way to a more organized, clutter free home.
If you’re planning a big haul of your unneeded items, don’t forget to call Junk It! for easy removal of your overflow.