One of the most important things about home declutter is having a good plan.
The reason for this is mainly psychological: when we have a clear plan for reaching a goal, it gives as much more motivation. First, it helps us to have "the end in sight" and second, because that way we just have to follow simple instructions, which is much easier than thinking "how should I declutter my bedroom" for example.
So here is a very simple plan to take on the mission of getting your home organized easily. If you persist and do the steps according to the plan every day, you can be done in one week, putting in one hour a day max. Would not that be great?
First, we need to decide what are the steps that we're going to implement for this task.
The most essential steps are the following: (of course, you can add or change this list according to your situation).
1. Sort the things that "bother" you + throw away garbage.
2. Find / create storage space for the things you decide to keep.
3. Take care of the things that you want to give or sell.
4. Organize the storage spaces.
These are the basic steps for decluttering your house, and, even if you follow only those steps, you'll already see a tremendous improvement.
If you've noticed, I did not divide the mission by rooms / spaces at home. This is because I think it could be pretty frustrating to have a task like "declutter the kitchen" for today. This is too vague, and if we do set such a task, chances are that we end up doing nothing.
We'll perform the steps above through all parts of the house, but pay attention: in the first step I mentioned "things that bother you". What is that mean?
Look, the main goal of home declutter is to reduce the stress which clutter causes and to make our home a place where we enjoy spending time and host people.
Therefore, if you have a garage that contains lots of clutter, but it does not bother you and does not make you constantly think "wow … I have to do something about it .." – just leave it alone for now . If you like the process and especially the results, you can continue taking care of that garage later.
This is why we should first decide which parts of the house are "bothering" and disturbing us.
The next step is to estimate how much time each step would take. It is hard for me to do the estimation for you, because it depends a lot on the size of the house. If the first step should take an hour or so, set it for one day. If a step should take more than an hour, set 2 days.
Basically, only the fourth step should take several hours and you want to divide it into 3-4 days.
Step 1: Sort. This is the fun part. The most important here is not hesitating too long! If you're not sure about an item, just leave it for now. However, you will have to be determined – you do not want to spend half hour thinking about every object.
Go through the house with a big garbage bag and put in everything that is redundant, not working, broken, has not been used for a long time, etc.
Prepare a box and put in all the things that you decide to give away and / or sell.
Step 2: Organize. After we got rid of and put in the box the stuff we do not need, it will be much easier to deal with the things left. At this point, you have to determine a specific storage space for each item. Otherwise, those things will continue to create mess and clutter.
If there is not enough storage space, it is usually easy to find a simple solution like using something already already at home (boxes, closets, shelves) or buying something pretty cheap.
Step 3: Prepare to give. This is the time to go through the box where you put the things for giving away and selling. If there are things to sell, clean, and prepare them for selling. Decide where you want to sell the stuff (the internet, second hand store, yard sale). Take the things to charity or whether you planned, or set a date to do it.
Step 4: Rinse and repeat. As I said before, this step will take the longest. But it does not have to be frustrating. What you have to do is choose one storage space each time and repeat the 4 steps for the things it holds. Again, if it does not bother you – leave it at this stage.
Well, that's it! In a week, you have a clutter-free and pleasant-to-live-in home!
Good Luck!
Source by Julia Krey
