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Living in an organized home is what we all dream of. Many of us would idealize open spaces and a well-cluttered home. It is challenging in our modern lives, especially when we are busy. We pounce on the new things we see at a store without realizing whether we need that or not.
Our modern houses are full of things that we hardly use, and they only pile on to make our living room look suffocating. If you worry about how to declutter your home? Then we will give you some easy and practical tips to execute it. But to initiate this cleanliness drive at your home, you must realize the purpose of doing it.
How do you Understand Decluttering?
Before we hop on how to declutter your home, we must know what decluttering means. If you have to describe decluttering, it will be perfect to say that everything has a place. Decluttering is different from organizing. To rearrange things cannot be called decluttering.
Decluttering means to have things you genuinely use, and they don’t hide in your wardrobes and stores.
To own minimal things is the idea behind decluttering. Being a minimalist doesn’t mean neglecting your requirements and throwing things. But it aims to overcome the habit of hoarding.
Many of our possessions are not ever used by us, or we may have a single type of product in multiples (here, it means owning different products that serve a single purpose). Decluttering can reveal your lost things as well. It brings in the things you love in front of your sight. Things might be lying under the pile of stuff and hence out of your attention.
Why is there a Need to Declutter your Home?
Decluttering can change the way your house appears to you. Apart from how to declutter your home, you should ask yourself why to declutter. If you always stay under stress, try tidying up your space; it can lift your mood. Let’s see some of the evident benefits of decluttering your space.
1. You have to Deal with Less Stuff
The best outcome of decluttering is it leaves you with less stuff. This means you have to clean fewer things and the place looks tidier itself.
Less cleaning means it saves tons of your energy.
2. Less stuff Reduces Stress
It is proven that clutter makes you feel stressed and snatches your calm. Clutter affects your mental health adversely. It makes you feel overwhelmed.
Most people feel distracted and say clutter leaves them feeling anxious.
3. Adds to Productivity and Improves Concentration
If working from home is your routine, you need a decluttered space to have a definite work plan. Have you ever worked on a table that is full of unwanted files and stationary? Have you ever experienced that working on a table full of stuff is annoying?
Such conditions not only hinder your work but also continuously hamper your concentration. Hence your performance will get affected. Decluttering will bring a neat workspace, and things will be easier to find. It will surely add to productivity.
So, a well-cluttered workplace means more concentration at work.
4. Your Cleanups will take Less Time
Everyday cleaning and putting things back in their place is very time-consuming. Decluttering your home means less stuff to put back in its original place, and you will have more time for yourself.
You need not spend the entire day cleaning as regularizing decluttering will keep your house tidier and more organized.
5. Your Room will Instantly Look Bigger
Just by decluttering your room, you can give an illusion of a bigger space to the existing place. More stuff makes the place look suffocating, and dumping things in every corner gives it an illusion of less space.
6. It Helps in Giving you Better Sleep
People who have less mess around them experience a night of better and sound sleep. It’s proven, that if you are sleeping in a room full of mess, you might experience distorted sleep. If you want to enjoy sound sleep, you must also try to declutter your room.
7. Decluttering Brings in Good Old Memories
We agree decluttering is stressful, and it leaves you baffled about where to start. But it also brings in old memories with your old photographs or presents.
In this way, it also minimizes your efforts in lost and found activities.
How to Declutter your Home Quickly if you are a Beginner?
Once you have decided to get rid of your possessions, the next step is to finalize a step-by-step guide to begin your decluttering drive.
Decluttering can be challenging for those, who will be undertaking it for the first time. So, knowing how to declutter your home in a short span for beginners is important.
Your reasons must be clear for decluttering your space. Ask yourself some bold questions, Why do I Want To Declutter My Place? Will Decluttering Have Some Positive Impact On My Overall Aura?
Once you realize how clutter affects you negatively and what this messy clutter does to you, that is the moment you will be ready to give up all those unnecessary things lying in your house.
For Beginners, there are 5 easy steps to begin and end decluttering within a few hours or a day. How to declutter your home in a hassle-free way.
1. Decluttering is a Habit
One thing, to begin with, is to make decluttering a habit and not to take it up like a day or two cleanliness regime. Making decluttering a habit has two benefits, first, it reduces the stress of how to declutter your home, and second, without putting in much effort, your things will get into the right place daily.
Once decluttering becomes a habit, you can take 20 -30 minutes in your daily cleaning and can simply declutter your home daily.
How can you add 20 – 30 minutes to your daily cleanliness time?
- Do not take extra hours out of your day just add 20 minutes in the morning and choose a room or cupboard each day.
- Try to arrange the drawer quickly in 5 minutes while taking out something.
- While watching your favourite drama, you can declutter things near you.
- Decluttering shouldn’t be thought of as just another work to be completed. Remember, it is not a task that feels easy while doing it.
2. Have a Decluttering Plan to Execute
How to declutter your home? Do you have any ideas, plans, or steps to follow guide? How to declutter your home efficiently? You can do all this with a decluttering plan. In simple terms, know your target here, which is getting rid of things that are not needed anymore.
Some areas store almost the entire clutter of the house. Try to avoid such places initially. Putting back things, again and again, will only shift the position of clutter, but remember, you want to get rid of clutter so, do not organize it.
The above doesn’t mean to let things sway in each direction and not put them back. It means not storing them for future use. Imagine you have clothes that you hardly wear but you have stored them for some of your imaginative trips and party.
Try to declutter a single corner or a single room at a time, and remember the ratio of 1:1, that is one corner or one room at a time. To begin your day or to end you can try decluttering your wardrobe.
3. Prepare a Decluttering Checklist
It is easy to make a checklist of areas, and rooms you want to declutter. Apart from this, you can make a checklist of each room separately.
Try to make a checklist that mentions the specific area and when you want to finish this decluttering drive.
Once you feel you are done with a room or a corner, you can again go through this checklist to reassure you that nothing has been missed out.
4. Preplan What you want to do with that Extra Stuff
Plan what will you do with the stuff you are keeping aside. beforehand, in the process of decluttering. Clutter might be something extra for you, but some of the clutter is useable and for sure can help somebody.
It is necessary to understand that decluttering will bring out majorly two types of stuff:
1. Things that can be used again or are still usable.
2. The ones that are completely worn out or not in the condition of being reused.
5. Start with an Area that is Easy to Wind Up
For beginners and everybody, motivation is something that, keeps you going with decluttering. Try to start and move ahead with a room, corner, or wardrobe that is easy and has less stuff. In this way, you don’t feel overwhelmed and won’t end up demotivated.
Don’t spend much time in a single corner or room. You can put a timer and even reminders so your other work doesn’t get hampered.
As a beginner, if you will follow the above tips, decluttering will become less stressful. Moreover, there will be no need to spend your weekends managing and organizing the wardrobes.
8 Clever and Easy Ways for Actively Engaged Mothers
Being a mother means dealing with mess 24*7, toys lying around, and picking up books every time you enter your living room can be overwhelming at times. If you are not sure about an efficient way to declutter, we will give you 8 super easy ways to declutter your space fast like a PRO.
Here are a few quick ideas of how to declutter your home while targeting each area and leaving nothing untouched. So let’s begin our decluttering drive!!
1. Begin to Start Tidying up the Entry of the House First
Surely, you do not want others to see how messy your house is, the moment they enter it. To initiate decluttering, choose your entrance first.
Remove those lying shoes, coats, or toys around the house door, giving it a clean makeover.
2. Declutter your Kitchen within 20 Minutes
Decluttering your kitchen requires long hours but, to have maximum output in minimum time, try out the following tips to get quick with decluttering:
- Try to keep your counter or slabs free. You can do this by putting things back in place after use. Do not leave appliances and any jars on the slab after use.
- To declutter your cabinets, start with a single cabinet and remove appliances, boxes, and things that are out of use. Once you are done with this, get rid of extra stuff and only then move to the next cabinet.
- You can keep a writing pad and pen or use sticky notes to write what extras you have and things that aren’t useful anymore.
Try 15-20 minutes decluttering routine daily and you can focus on other areas also. Every day 15-20 minutes is not necessary, sometimes 10 minutes will work. And there can be cheat days too!
3. Try to Manage a Single Shelf in a Day
Shelves catch attention first. There might be several shelves in your living room. The most difficult part is rearranging bookshelves. You might be a book lover, but managing bookshelves may be out of your interest areas. Those messy shelves are very distracting, and managing the pile of books at a time is frightening.
Try to clean a single shelf each day. Take 10-20 minutes out and try to arrange your books and other stuff in place. While decluttering, see if there is anything that is out of use. You can spare a single shelf for such unused stuff.
4. Best Idea to Declutter your Wardrobes
If you always find clothes dropping out, there is an easy way to declutter your wardrobes.
For this, you can head towards a wardrobe and make two sections of your clothes. First, the ones you frequently wear, worn-out clothes, and second, the ones you hardly wear(All in good condition). Keep aside the clothes that you hardly wear, and you can donate them later if you wish.
Now, rearrange your clothes in your more spacious wardrobe.
Few tips to get an organized wardrobe in minutes:
- You can keep things in a single place that you use jointly.
- Clothes that you wear less or only on occasion should be kept aside from daily wear.
- Divide the closet into sections where you are going to store the same type of clothes. Try keeping jeans together with your shirts and T-shirts separately.
5. Manage those Toys that Keep on Lying on the Floor all the Time
We all like to pamper our children and give them what they want. But the more number of toys means a huge mess to clean. How to declutter your home by managing those toys. One of the best ways is to assign a place your kid can store his toys (preferably a bag, plastic bucket, or drawer).
You can also take back some of the toys and give them when your child is bored with the previous ones. Let your child play with the first few pairs of toys for a week or month then you can change those toys.
6. The Easy Way to Manage Paper Clutter
Paper bills, memos, and other paperwork related to your insurance, car, and much more paper can be a hassle to manage. Some become a part of the file and some keep on lying around, while you don’t get the time to arrange them. The easiest way is to use your smartphones and click pictures of the documents that you can store. Keep these pictures in a drive.
It will reduce your paper clutter, and paper will become less of a juggle.
7. Use 3 Box Rule to Store, Donate, and Get Rid of Stuff
You can make 3 boxes, one to donate, one to keep, and one to throw away. Use this method, as it will help you for sure in decluttering your wardrobe, kitchen, or bookshelf.
How to declutter your home with a 3-box rule? It simply makes your mind clear. It helps you in deciding what to do with the stuff inside your house. Use a simple technique of decluttering:
- Things you frequently use
- Hardly use
- Worn-out things.
8. Things you use More Often
You can sort your clutter according to the season. Put the things you need for the current season in front and store the rest in plastic containers.
When you sort your wardrobe according to the season, you will get a chance to see and examine clothes. While doing this, you can declutter your wardrobe. How to declutter your home according to the current season:
- Discard clothes that you haven’t worn for decades while arranging your almirah.
- You will get clothes that are no longer of your size, you can donate such clothes.
- If any clothes need fittings, get them out and prepare them for the season
What Can you do With the Clutter you Get in Decluttering?
More than how to declutter your home there is another question that scares you. It is what will you do with the clutter? The clutter you get out of decluttering process.
Here are a few ideas that can help you to get rid of decluttered stuff:
1. Donate the Things that you Hardly Used
If you have already planned to donate, make some efforts and try to find out any church, shelter homes, women help shelters or an orphanage that might need that stuff more than you do.
2. Sell your Stuff Online in Second-hand Stores
Nowadays, there are many stores online that help you in selling your stuff. It is a good way of getting rid of extra stuff and at the same time making some money out of it.
3. Donate Old Books to a Library Near you
No matter its condition, books are useful. Still, if you have books of your young ones which they used when they were kids and are now no longer in use, donate them to the library.
It is a good way of reusing books as they will still be read by children.
4. Donate Old Kitchen Appliances and Utensils
Old utensils and appliances can be donated to thrift stores and other charitable organizations.
5. Offer Stuff you do not use anymore to People you Know
You can even ask your friends if they need anything from the clutter.
Think your friend has planned to buy a new appliance. Such an appliance is already with you and is hardly used. So offering it to your friend helps to build a good relationship also.
6. Take out Broken Things and Get them Repaired
There are some or more broken objects in our houses. Mostly we see them and keep them aside to get them fixed later on. Such objects and things also come out in the decluttering process.
Once you get such a thing, you need to question whether getting it repaired is worth it. If not, you can simply discard it. If it is something indispensable you can get it fixed to use.
7. If you did it Once, you need to do it More Frequently
After all the decluttering, seeing a clean house is such a nice feeling. But to keep it clean and decluttered for a long. You have to keep a record of when you last did it.
It is advised, to start decluttering when you see small piles of things or you can decide on either mid of every month or the end of every month for decluttering.
Decluttering can be more fun and productive if you can involve your family as well. It will inculcate a habit of organization in your children.
8. Get Rid of all those Bags you Kept Aside for Donation and Discard
Make sure after decluttering your house you should get rid of bags that you have made for donation. If there is any bag full of things you want to discard, don’t let these bags take place in the house for long. You might need to do decluttering again.
How to Declutter your Home Final Takeaways
We hope our article has given you some executable tips to make your decluttering drive easy. We would love to hear from you about which suggestion worked for you.
If you would like to add something to “how to declutter your home” or you have a different approach do share it with us down in the comments!
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Last Updated on by Sathi Chakraborty, MSc Biology