This site is privately owned and is not affiliated with any government agency. Learn more here.



Ways to Declutter Your Place

Just the thought of decluttering can feel overwhelming, especially if you have been avoiding areas in your home or apartment for a while. However, decluttering your home has many benefits.

Simply getting rid of things you no longer need can give your home a fresh look and help you better organize your home. The benefits of living in an open and uncluttered space include less stress, less cleaning that must be done, less time that you have to spend organizing and more.

Once you have decided to declutter your home, you need to pick a place to start. Decluttering can seem like a huge, daunting task. To combat feeling overwhelmed, you can pick one room or even one part of the room to start with. Simply go item by item and determine if each item is still serving the space or is just taking up space. For more information on how to declutter your space, the decluttering process and more, refer to the sections below.

Start Small

As mentioned previously, if this is your first time trying to declutter your space, it is best to start small. Many specialists suggest that the best way to declutter your area is to allot five minutes to focus on the task at a time. Setting aside five to 10 minutes each day to declutter your home is an easy way to clear things out over time without becoming overwhelmed.

Another small change that can eliminate the clutter in your home is to keep an area specifically dedicated for incoming papers. This includes mail, bills, documents and more. Do not put older papers that you have already dealt with in this area. This space should just be for the recent mail and documents that you are keeping for a purpose. This may require you to find better storage solutions for your space.

Paper accumulates easily, and once it does, it can take over your countertops or desks. Laying your papers down without having a designated space for them will only cause more clutter. When you have a place to put all of your mail and extra papers, it eliminates clutter almost immediately. This designated paper space can be a drawer, a large shoebox or a file cabinet. This will also help you remember where all of your papers are when you need them while not leaving them out for guests to see.

The next small decluttering tip is to create another box, bag or drawer for all the things you are unsure of. When decluttering, the goal is to keep the things that are necessary and throw away the items you do not want. The problem is that there are always going to be a few items that you are not sure of. To determine if those items should be kept or thrown away, designate a place for them and monitor how often you use them. Give yourself six months before revisiting the box of items and then ask yourself if those items are really worth keeping.

Try Different Challenges

Right now, there are many challenges and experiments that will make decluttering a whole lot easier and exciting to do. If you are more on the extreme side of decluttering and are up for a challenge, you may enjoy a 365-day challenge. This challenge requires you to declutter by giving one item away for 365 days. Some people continue this challenge even after the 365 days are finished.

Another challenge or experiment is The Oprah Winfrey Closet Hanger Experiment. The task is simple yet effective. The experiment tests out the theory that you only wear 20 percent of your clothes 80 percent of the time. If this is the case, the majority of the clothes in your closet do nothing but take up space most of the time.

For this experiment, you will need to have all of your clothes hangers facing one way. Your clothes must be hanging for this experiment to work. When you wear an item, clean it and place it back on the hanger, but hang it in the opposite direction. After six months, see what hangers have not been flipped. Those clothes are the ones to get rid of. By the end of this experiment, you should have a lot more closet space, which can be used to store other items and further declutter your home.

There are plenty of other challenges that can help you to declutter your home or closet in order to achieve a cleaner living space. Find one that best fits your personality and your time frame.

Innovative Ways to Declutter

If you are finding yourself constantly decluttering your place and feeling like nothing is working for your situation, you may want to try a more creative solution. Decluttering does not always mean getting rid of things. Sometimes you simply just need more space.

When many people think of decluttering, their minds go straight to the closet. However, another place that holds more material than it often needs to is the kitchen.

If you need more storage for your kitchen items, consider building shelves on your walls to display things that have no room in the cabinets, such as glasses, plates and more. Open shelves in the kitchen are both innovative and clutter friendly. To make your wall shelf even more appealing to the eye, consider a backdrop. This makes it hard for the dishes to blend into the wall.

If you live with children, organization can be harder. Toy chests and bins are great ways to make sure that your children’s toys do not take over your home. Even with storage bins, however, you may find that you are still running out of space. If that is the case, you may need to get rid of some toys.

Another innovative solution is to have a shelf that can hold bins that are labeled for specific toys. The shelf can hold a box for builder toys, a box for dolls, a box for arts and crafts and more. This allows your child to have a specific place for specific items and makes the child less likely to leave toys lying around. When your child is ready to play with a new set of toys, he or she will have to trade out the bin so that there is space for the new items.

These tips should help you stay on top of your clutter, and once you have made enough progress toward regaining control of your space, you can begin redecorating your home in a stylish, clutter-free way.

Join Our Newsletter

To be updated with our latest news

By clicking "Join", I represent that I am 18+ years of age; I understand that this site is privately owned and is not affiliated with, nor endorsed by any government agency, I agree that the personal information I provide you with may be shared with third parties for other marketing purposes, and agree to the Privacy Policy, California Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions; and agree to receive email marketing from localhometips.com

It might also interest you: