Whether you’re planning on selling your home and want it to look more organized in photos and showings, or if you’re just in need of a fresh start and more organization in your life, decluttering is a great place to start. Today we’re giving all the advice we know on where to start when decluttering your home!
1. Set a Timer
The thought of decluttering every space in every room is overwhelming and, quite frankly, makes most people want to give up before they’ve even started. Start small! If all you’ve got is 10 minutes, choose a room (or a specific drawer or shelf or corner of the room), set a 10-minute timer, and get to it. Stop when the timer stops, and try again when you have more time or another burst of motivation!
2. An Item a Day
Every single day, choose one item in your house that you just don’t need anymore. Many items hold some sort of sentimental value or are tied to a memory, so purging 20 items at a time can be hard to do. If you just accept that each day you’ll choose one item in your house that you no longer need, after a year you’ll have a whole lot less clutter in your house – don’t you think? J
3. Take “Before and After” Photos
Isn’t everything more fun when it’s a challenge? If you take “Before” photos of a space, you’ll feel extra motivated to make the “After” photo look drastically different! Game on!
4. Tackle Your Closet
When it comes to clothes, use the “one year” challenge. Obviously, some clothes get put away seasonally, but if you haven’t worn it in one whole year, odds are you won’t wear it again. Or if it’s a piece of clothing you forgot about, you won’t even know it’s missing!
5. Create a Checklist
Crossing off items on a checklist is just so satisfying, right? Add generic household items to a checklist – things like cookbooks, pots & pans, coffee mugs, hair accessories, photos, craft supplies, DVDs, and board games – and you’ll feel so much better knowing you’ve left no stone unturned when decluttering your house!
6. Pretend You’re a Visitor (or a Buyer!)
How does your house look to an outsider’s perspective? You know where things SHOULD go, or that an item is only temporarily sitting there, or that you MEANT to put that away last week…but what does a visitor see? Try to view your home through that lens when deciding what can stay and what should go.
7. Create Landing Stations
Most of us have locations where things typically start to pile up – it’s often the entryway table, that one corner of the kitchen counter (you know the one), your kitchen table, your nightstand, or the coffee table. Identify all of the spots this tends to happen in your home and give it a landing station. Add a small tray or organizer to that spot. If the items fit in that tray, it can stay. If not, they’ve gotta go! Plus, a tray helps everything feel like it has a place and isn’t just a reject pile of odds and ends. J
8. Analyze Your Pantry
When you take a good look at your pantry and your fridge, odds are good that you’ll find a few items that are expired or you’ll never eat. Plus crumbs are bound to pile up in these spaces! Remove EVERYTHING for a moment, wipe down the shelves, and go through each item one-by-one deciding whether to keep or throw. Plus, it’s a great opportunity to take inventory and maybe save a little money on your next trip to the grocery store!
Are you in need of a good declutter? Which of these tips will be most useful to you? Share in the comments below. Good luck!