When you look around your home, do you see a lot of clutter- items that don’t have a specific place they’re supposed to go?
A lot of us live in homes that are often messy, but there are advantages to decluttering your home.
Why would you want to make your home less cluttered? Here are some of the best reasons:
· It makes it easier for you to find things
· Decluttering reduces mental stress
· It will beautify your home
· It reduces hiding spaces for insects and other pests
· It can reduce dust and dirt in the home
· It reduces the risk of trips, slips, and falls
Now that you have your motivation for decluttering your home, let’s talk about how you can go about doing it.
Get Rid of the Non-essentials
Are there some things in your home you simply don’t need or don’t use?
Maybe you have trash in your home that isn’t picked up.
Start by tossing out all the things you obviously have no use for.
Some of that can go in the rubbish and some can be given to other people.
You may even find some things that are in good enough condition that you may want to try selling them.
Work Room by Room
If you’re going to organize your home and declutter the space, you don’t want to take on the whole project at once.
This can lead to disorganisation and a sense of overwhelming work to be done.
Instead, take the job one room at a time.
It’s probably best to start with the room that most people see when they enter the house.
Cleaning up that entry room will help with your stress levels and will make your home more inviting.
You also want to put your bedroom at the top of the list, as this should be a room that is very comfortable and welcoming to you.
It shouldn’t be a room that causes you a lot of stress and anxiety due to how cluttered it is.
Each person will have a different list of priorities when organising the rooms of their house.
There’s no right or wrong when it comes to making up your list, but you should list out the rooms in order of their priority for decluttering.
Get Boxes for Decluttering
As you try to organise the rooms in your home, you will probably come across a lot of stuff that you’re not sure where it should go yet.
Maybe you don’t have a storage space in mind, but you need to get it out of the way to help declutter the room.
In that case, you’ll want to use some storage boxes to remove these things out of your work area.
As you are decluttering a room, you can store some things in the boxes until you figure out where they should go.
You don’t necessarily have to purchase boxes, as many grocery stores will give you boxes for free if you come in at the right time and ask for them.
Make sure you have enough boxes that you can handle all the clutter in a single room, but there is no need to gather enough boxes ahead of time for all the rooms in your house at once.
Remember that you are working through your home one room at a time.
Organise by Finding a Place for Everything
Everything in your home is going to need a place where it belongs.
If something doesn’t have a belonging place, it will likely end up on the floor or in one room or another from time to time, and you’ll have difficulty finding that item.
Here are a few suggestions for how you can organise some of the rooms in your home:
· Add a shoe rack by the doors
· Add a coat rack by the main door
· Place books into a bookcase
· Place toys into a toy box
· Store clothes away in a dresser or bureau
· Place stationery into an organiser or in a drawer
· Store linens in a closet or on a shelf
· Place dirty laundry into laundry baskets
The goal is to put as many things off the floor and out of the way as possible.
If you can put them out of sight in a closet, then that’s even better.
For each room of the house, you’ll want to come up with storage options that are specific to that room.
Clean as You Go
As you declutter your home, you will probably find that your floors and other surfaces are fairly dirty and in need of cleaning.
We suggest taking time to clean each room as you organise it.
This will help reduce the amount of dirt and dust in your home and keep things tidy.
You don’t want to track the dirtiness from one room into the next room as you are trying to organise your home.
If the organising is a lot of work and you don’t have time or energy for cleaning, you may want to try a home cleaning company. They can handle the cleaning chores for you while you work on the organising.
Reduce Your Cluttering
Your habits will determine how organized your home is and how quickly it becomes disorganised.
You may need to change those habits to keep your home clutter free.
One of the best ways to do that is to put things away as you are done using them.
Put away your shoes, keys, and coat when you come into the house. Put away laundry as soon as it is done washing.
Another helpful habit is to clean your home regularly, setting aside a day of the week for each room of the house so that your home stays tidy.
You could also encourage other people in the home to do their part to keep the home looking clean.
These are a few ways to cut down on the clutter in your house and keep it organised most of the time.
