I love an orderly home and decluttering my home is how I keep it clean and with everything in its place. When I finish cleaning a room or my whole house I love to just take a moment to sit back and enjoy a cup of coffee and admire the love and work that went into making the home cozy and clean. Decluttering my home is my new hobby.
Clutter is a real enemy and can keep us from enjoying our families and homes as it takes up our time, can rob us of our joy, can add stress to our lives, and takes up our living space.
Our homes are all made different and look different because we are all different so what looks like an order for me might not look like an order for you. There are some simple tips to use as I am decluttering my home and making it tidy and in order. Think about what might be important to you or your family. Consider what activities you’ll enjoy? What would make great memories for the family as they live in the home together? It would be good to start looking at your home in these ways as you put things in their place.
What do you want your home to represent:
One of the first things to do is declutter while determining the purpose and use of each room in your home. You want your home to serve you and your family instead of you serving your home. If a home is uncluttered and there is a purpose to each room it will be much easier to clean and keep it in order.
Take the time to spend a few moments in each room of your house to write out what happens in each room. What is the room’s purpose and what activities take place in that room? What items will be needed to do these activities? You most likely will have several purposes for each room in your home.
Let’s use the kitchen as an example. My kitchen and dining room is one big open space. We love to cook and bake a lot and so we will want items close by depending on what we are doing. In our family room, we watch TV, and we have a small table to one side for us to play games or work on puzzles so my room is designed around those purposes. We mainly sleep and dress in our bedroom but our daughter also hangs out with her friends in her room. These thoughts here for us should help you get started in thinking about your rooms.
Everything Has a Place:
If you get one thing from this post I hope it is this…there must be a place for everything to maintain order in your home. The moment an item doesn’t have a home is the start of clutter (and it doesn’t take long for clutter to build from there).
If everything has a place it makes it easier for you and your family to clean up. You save time by not losing items and spending time looking for them. The things you need are in the right place where you use them.
Put items where you find yourself using them and where they are most convenient. It sounds simple but many of us don’t do this. A big clutter area we all seem to have is where we enter and exit our homes. Make sure you have good storage in that area of your home. A place for shoes, coats, keys, bags, etc.
Again, take it a room at a time and step back, and envision how you use that room and what you need to find homes for in each room.
Identifying Where We Will Be Decluttering Our Home
You will find that clutter begins little by little over time. It doesn’t happen overnight and it’s not fixed in a day. We need to get to the underlying reasons for our clutter. Much of our clutter is holding on to items that we are emotionally attached to. I’m less likely to get rid of an item if I’m emotionally attached to it. I need to determine which items I’m going to keep and how I’m going to store them.
Paperwork is usually one of the big clutter areas to battle. You will usually find our paper clutter in the kitchen or my office. I need to have a system for our mail each day so it doesn’t gather into a pile on our counter. I try to write appointments right in my phone calendar and don’t take the little reminder cards. We also are finding ourselves doing most of our banking and bill paying online.
Clutter is best defined as anything you have in your home that doesn’t have a purpose. Ask yourself what the benefit is of holding on to this item. The other area you need to consider is the amount of space you have available in your home for storage.
We Are Ready for Decluttering Our Home:
So we have determined the purpose of each room and we are now ready to come up with ways to get a hold of the clutter. It is now time to start taking on each room but we are wondering where to start.
Remember, clutter can’t be organized So we need to get three bags or boxes and label them:
- Give-Away – for items to donate.
- Put Away – for items to keep but need a new home
- Throw Away – This one is obvious
Here are a few Tips to Get Started:
- Start small – pick a small room or a small area of a large room
- Tackle spaces one at a time – closet, dresser, or storage totes/trunks
- Plan to do a little at a time and give yourself enough time to work this way.
- Look at the family calendar and make sure there isn’t an event or holiday to force you into a panic mode of finishing this project. Some do better with just a 15-30 minute decluttering time a day and at the end of the week, you will see your progress
There is nothing worst than a huge pile or mess from working too large of an area at one time and then finding out you don’t have the time needed to clean up from your decluttering.
Decluttering is a lifetime process if you are doing it right. Set your mind to know or realize that decluttering needs to take place on a regular schedule. Your home, if you are living in it daily, will need to be decluttered almost daily but a nice orderly schedule should keep it intact.
Our Life Is Better When We Are Decluttering Our Home:
Most think that it takes a lot of time to keep clutter at bay. But honestly, it will save you time. You will be able to find things easier when everything is in its place. You will also see that you can get your hands on a certain paper or item when it is in its place. And you will also be happy to have others over to your home when you know that there isn’t clutter laying around everywhere.
“Clutter is the physical manifestation of unmade decisions fueled by procrastination.” —Christina Scalise, “Organize Your Life and More“
