|8 surprising tips to declutter your home|
This weekend I spent time with a friend helping her to declutter and giving her some tips to reclaim a few areas in her home that were causing her a lot of anxiety. While we emptied and cleaned and tossed and organized, I listened to her stories, her feelings, and her emotions that surrounded this clutter. I learned what her struggles were and how she felt about keeping and getting rid of things in her home and in her life. I would like to say that it was surprising, but I understood all of it because it had been there!!!
Clutter takes so much from us. It takes our peace of mind, our time, our resources, our thoughts, our money and so much more. But when we step up and say ENOUGH, we get it all back and then some. We gain confidence. There is a sense of control. We’ll gain the freedom to enjoy our homes and our everyday lives again and can finally stop feeling like we are just trying to ‘stay afloat’. Instead, we can move confidently toward our goals. If you are ready to get started here are eight tips to declutter your home more easily.
And if you still need to figure out where to start, grab this free guide I created just for my readers.
TIP 1: More containers and boxes DO NOT mean better home organization.
This was something my friend shared with me: She thought if she put all her ‘stuff’ into boxes and bins so that the closets and cabinets “appeared” organized, that she was containing her clutter but that it didn’t actually take away her anxiety about it. We talked about how when you just box up your stuff it really doesn’t solve the ‘clutter anxiety’. It becomes almost a dirty little secret that in each box there’s clutter just stored away out of sight. We want to think it’s also out of mind, but it isn’t. Each time you open that cabinet or closet you know what you’re dealing with. Even if it’s put away in a pretty bin.
So, before you add bins, boxes or containers to your organization you need to clear it all out first. Chances are if you skip that step, you’ll end up getting storage solutions that don’t really meet your needs.
TIP 2: There is a CLEAR winner when it comes to decluttering.
Clear storage containers are hands down the decluttering winner. Once you’ve sorted through your items, having containers that you can easily see into makes organizing and finding your items much easier. It will also help you to keep that storage box clean and clutter free versus when you can’t see what’s in there. When that’s the case, you’re more likely to just toss stuff in without thinking about it (because you can’t see it).
TIP 3: Ditch the extra step.
One thing that we were sorting was a small bin with paints and paint brushes for her son’s crafts. We put the small jars of paint into the bin and then she had added a cute zippered pouch for the paint brushes. I challenged her to think about why. She said she had felt that the more ‘organized’ each item was, the better she was doing in keeping it all in one place. But the reality of use and clean up is often that fewer steps are better.
I offered this question: “are you more likely to clean these up and put them away if you can easily toss them all into this one box or if you have to add the step of also zipping up the paint brushes into their own container?” When you think about how you use stuff in practicality, the fewer steps you take to put things in their homes the better. And the more likely you are to follow through.
Another tip to declutter your home and make it easier to access your items is to ditch is the lid. Adding the step to take off and re-apply the lid to bins, jars, etc. is often just wasted time and energy. So, we removed all the lids from the pantry containers so they could easily be grabbed and put away without the extra step of having to put them all back on each time she used the bin’s contents.
In my home, the only place I have kept lids is in my master linen closet. I keep all my clear totes labeled and stacked so the lids are a requirement but when it comes to panty items, spices bins or baking totes, I forego the lid and keep it simple.
TIP 4: Toss the packaging.
When you’re sorting and organizing, it can be tempting to put things away in their packaging. Especially if they aren’t open. But all that cardboard and plastic takes up valuable real-estate. If you have lots of different batteries with packaging, take them all out and put them into one box that you can grab whenever you need batteries. If you have multiple items that can be combined, do that! It saves space in your cabinets in drawers. Think about this in terms of things like duplicate bottles of vitamins or multiple open bags of cotton balls. By combining, you get a better sense of what you really have and only need to store one item instead of multiples. That’s a win-win.
TIP 5: Pull it all out.
It’s tempting to try to organize and declutter all the areas in your home just by sorting through items in your space without taking it all out. We hope it will save us the mess of the ‘big clean up’. But, when you can’t see everything you have at once, it can lead you to miss something that might be duplicate or unwanted. When we empty the entire closet or cabinet onto a table or the floor to sort through, we get a better visual of how much we have and what really needs to stay and go. It also speaks to our emotional side regarding our stuff.
When we pile all our clothing on to our bed, mentally we can help adjust from a scarcity mindset of “I don’t have enough to wear” to an abundance mindset of “Woah, I have a lot of clothing”
When my friend went through this process, admittedly the hardest step for her, she said she didn’t realize how much she was holding on to out of guilt of the wasted money or of fear of letting go. Once she cleared her closet, she said she found pieces that she loved but had forgotten about and ended up with just her favorite things that made her feel good and looked good on her. She said that even though she donated almost HALF of what was in her closet, she felt like she actually had MORE to wear because she knew each item was something that she truly enjoyed.
This process is the same for dishes, food in the pantry, books or toys. You can’t fully appreciate how MUCH you have of something until you see it all piled in one place. Doing this step might be the most important of all the tips I am sharing with you today.
TIP 6: Everything needs a home.
Part of the clutter is indecision. When you are cleaning up and organizing, do you often find yourself not knowing where an item ‘belongs’? Does it lead you to do that, “I’ll just put it here” move? The easiest way to keep your home clutter free is to ensure that every single item has a home and you know exactly where to put it.
This means that if you are walking through your house and you find a random roll of tape or pair of scissors or a lost cat toy, you know immediately upon picking it up where it should be returned to. If items do not have a designated home in your house, then you have two choices. Create one for this and like items to live or consider if you truly need it.
TIP 7: Decluttering and Organizing are NOT the same.
Let’s face facts.
You can organize clutter all day long, but it doesn’t lead to less clutter.
When you simply organize, label and color coordinate your plethora of stuff it might feel really great at the moment but, it will take one busy week or one particularly curious or messy toddler to undo it all and leave you right back where you started. You’ll feel like it doesn’t matter if you organize because it never stays that way.
I used to organize my kid’s toys weekly. We had an entire wall of shelving units that held bins and boxes of toys. Puzzles go here, cars go here, barbies in this box, dress up in this box. No sooner would I get it organized that my kids would be so happy to be able to actually FIND stuff that they would dump the bins. When I asked them to clean up – all the toys went into whatever box or bin was closest and all my hard work was undone.
I felt defeated and it all felt pointless and so more often than not the room went uncleaned and unused. Kids don’t like playing in overwhelmingly messy spaces. This was evident by the avoidance of the room on everyone’s part!!!
Once we removed the NUMBER of things we had, it became easier to keep things organized by type. And even when the bins get all switched up, it doesn’t bother me because stuff is still easy to find and easy to re-sort if I desired.
So, you can organize all day long, but unless you also declutter it won’t take long for all your efforts to be undone.
TIP 8: Start where it matters.
Part of this process is knowing what space really frustrates you the most and just jumping in. Use the tips we’ve already talked about to tackle that room that makes you cringe. The one where you will feel the biggest relief once it’s done. Once you’ve cleared the room that brings you the most frustration, you can continue to work through your other spaces a little at a time. You won’t feel quite as overwhelmed once you’ve created white space in your home. From there you can tackle each room one by one, or even each drawer or closet in your room one day at a time. And when you feel overwhelmed, you can return to that initial space you cleared completely and feel the freedom that white space will bring to your day.
Not sure where to start, use these journal prompts to help.
Decluttering can be a big job. It can elicit a LOT of emotions that you may not even know you have to surround your stuff. If can make you feel guilty, wasteful or burdened. But you do not have to allow that to be your story. Instead, like my friend, you can acknowledge what was, what is changing moving forward, and let go of those emotions along with your clutter.
You’ve SO got this and I’m here to help!
I would love if you would share with us what space in your home you wish could be instantly clutter free?
