Are you looking for ways to clear space out of your highly-cluttered house? Do you feel that you could be more productive if you had a cleaner home to live and work in? If so, then you need to start by learning all about how to declutter your home.
The process isn’t as difficult or as daunting as you’d think. Once you take the first step, you’ll find how rewarding and—dare we say it—fun that decluttering your home can be.
See below for an in-depth guide on how to declutter and organize your home. You’re going to love the results!
1. One Small Step for Mankind
The big projects are always the hardest to start, aren’t they? But as every experienced mountain climber will tell you, it always starts with the first step. Decluttering your home is no different.
Why not ease your way into it? If you try to kick things off with the biggest mess of all—we’re looking at you, kids—then you may never finish. You’ll get frustrated by the lack of progress that you’re seeing.
Start this entire process by assessing each room in your house, then starting with the smallest room. Here’s the interesting part: even though you’ve only finished one tiny room, the rest of the decluttering will become much easier from there!
You’ll find that you’ll quickly develop a system—one of which we’ll show you in a moment. After accomplishing one room, you’ll feel as if you can take on the world. It will have you so pumped that you’ll either take on the next smallest room right away or carry that momentum when you tackle it the next day.
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Before you start, you might even make a list. List the rooms in your house in the order that you wish to declutter them. Every time you cross one-off, you’ll feel a weight being lifted off your shoulders.
2. Donate, Toss, or Sell
The more organized you are during this process, the easier that you’ll find it to be. You might be tempted to just get in there and get your hands dirty, but we urge you to do some game-planning before the action; trust us… it’ll help!
In every room, there will of course be items that you wish to hold on to. Things like important items you’d thought you’d lost, keepsakes that hold nostalgic value, etc. Those items aren’t going anywhere anytime soon!
Then there’s the other objects—the “crap”, some might call them—that you don’t want, but aren’t sure how to get rid of. For example, while you might not want that desk in your spare bedroom anymore, it’d be a shame to throw away something in such great condition.
For those items, we have a solution: grab a pen and paper and make three columns; title those three columns “donate”, “toss”, and “sell”.
For all the items you wish to remove from your house, list them in one of the three columns, then present them to your family. Be prepared for some disagreements, but hold your ground!
If your “toss” list is getting long or has some big objects, make sure to book a roll off dumpster rental to make life easier. Once it’s in that dumpster, it’s out of your hair!
3. From Top to Bottom
Perhaps you’ve attempted to declutter your home before and were disappointed by the results. You may have thrown some things away, but you really didn’t feel like you made a dent in the clutter.
One of the reasons this may have occurred is that you weren’t diligent with your approach. If you randomly go from area to area, you might just be distributing the clutter elsewhere, rather than removing it from your home.
For that reason, we recommend that you always start from the top of any object you’re decluttering, then work your way towards the bottom until you reach the floor.
For example, when cleaning your closing, start with the top shelves, then the racks of clothes, then the dresser below it (from the top drawer to bottom), then the shoes on the floor.
4. Create a “?” Box
Remember earlier when we told you to make a “donate, toss, or sell” list? No matter how hard you try, there will still be items that you’re conflicted over. You simply don’t know what to do with them.
There’s no reason to make a rash decision! If you aren’t sure what to do with them at that moment, throw them in a “?” box.
Once you’ve completely decluttered every room in the house, you and your family can go back through these items with a clear head and decide as a team what to do with them.
5. Treat Yo Self
Any Parks and Recreation fans out there? Every big project deserves a reward at the end of it. It’s how you can assure that you’ll actually make it through to the finish line.
For all of you out there that say, “The feeling of a clean house will be enough!”, hear us out. Rewarding yourself for this huge task will incentivize you and your family to take on another big task shortly.
As many experts have pointed out, rewards are an important part of developing positive habits. Reward yourself for this big task now and create positive habits that will ensure you never have a cluttered house again.
Use These Tips to Declutter Your Home
Now that you have seen an in-depth guide on how to declutter your home, be sure to use this information to your advantage.
Take the time to browse our website for more articles on decluttering tips, as well as many other topics you’ll find refreshing and helpful.