Decluttering your entire home can feel overwhelming. Where do you start and how do you know what to get rid of? A good way to avoid these feelings of being overwhelmed is to break it down into smaller tasks and then work through each task at your own pace. Breaking your decluttering project down into a manageable process will help you get started and not be intimidated by the work ahead.
How Do I Even Start?
A good way to start is to break your project down into room by room tasks. Another easy way to start is to go through each room looking for objects that you don’t want to keep, donate/give away, or do something else with. Those objects belong in the trash. Grab a trash bag and go room by room in search of garbage that didn’t make it to a garbage can, broken or stained items, or outdated technology that you have no use for and won’t be able to donate. This should only take about 15 minutes depending on the size of your home and how much clutter you have. If it’s taking a lot longer than anticipated, consider breaking it down to one trash bag per day, one room per day, or simply set a timer and declutter until it goes off.
Expectations
Let’s be realistic here. If your expectation is to declutter your entire home in one day, especially if you have a lot of stuff, you’ll most likely feel let down when you don’t meet that expectation. Be aware that everyone’s timeline is different and your house could take a week or even a month to successfully declutter.
Tackle The Difficult Spaces
We recommend starting with the most cluttered spaces first. Saving these rooms or areas until the end will likely just overwhelm you. Starting with the most difficult areas first allows you to use all that fresh energy where you’ll need it the most. It will also give you a nice boost to move on to other, less cluttered rooms once you’ve been successful with a difficult one. You’ll be able to breeze through the other rooms after dealing with the cluttered ones.
Create A System
Make your decluttering system as simple or as complex as you’d like, but definitely make a system. One of the more simple ways to do this is to create three separate piles, bags, or boxes for items that fall under three different categories.
- Trash – items that you’ll have no need for when you’re done with this process. We discussed some tips for identifying these objects earlier.
- Donate – items that are still in good or decent quality, but that you no longer need. Toys the kids no longer use or clothing that no longer fits are a couple of examples of these items
- Keep/Store – items you would like to keep, but that need to be moved to a new place in your home or even stored if necessary
If you have other system ideas that work for you, use them instead of ours! Explore organizing methods if you’ve got the time and the energy.
Follow Through
Now that you’ve organized your clutter according to a system that works for you, make sure to follow through with your plans as soon as possible. The longer the clutter sits, the more likely you’ll be to end up keeping it or putting it back where it was. Get those trash items out to the trash the same day if possible, and take those donations the next day or the next weekend. If you’ve decided to keep items that need to be stored, make it a two-for-one trip and visit your donation location and storage facility on the same day. We’re all about efficiency!
Speaking of which, if you don’t already have a storage unit, don’t worry. Here’s a list of the best self-storage facilities in Minneapolis!
We hope these tips will help you feel more confident and less overwhelmed about organizing and decluttering your home.