Tips on Decluttering Your Home
Are you happy with how your home looks right now? Do you have clutter hidden in your closets and corners? Has it spilled out into your garage? Your basement?
Most of us surround ourselves with quite a bit of unintentional clutter. Over the years, this adds up to create a huge mess in our homes and in our lives. If one of your new year's resolutions is to clean the clutter out of your life, here are a few tips to help you get started.
Take Baby Steps
With any major or seemingly overwhelming project or goal, it's best to take baby steps. Break things down as far as they can be. With uncluttering your home, you can break your home into rooms, then into areas of the room. Maybe just commit yourself initially to ten minutes of picking up trash and throwing it away. Set a timer. If you want to work longer than that, go you! See how much you can do with each little baby step. Over time, the little things add up in a huge way.
Refuse to Collect Trash
How often have you bought something or put something to the side because you might use it one day? These things can be small, like coupons, or large like storage boxes or even machinery or furniture. Stop keeping these things that you don't need! You are just collecting trash! For expensive items, sell them online or through the classified section of your local paper. When selling things, limit how long you'll wait before dropping your price and how long you'll keep the item. Less expensive items can either go to charity or go straight into the trash, depending on whether someone else could use the item.
By the way: if you haven't used it in over a year, it's trash and you don't need it in your life.
Rent a Dumpster
This may seem like a huge step, but if you're truly committed to cleaning out your whole house, or even your garage or basement, you're going to find that you have a LOT of trash lying around. Many people feel embarrassed or worried about putting too much trash out for their weekly pickup, and this can turn into an excuse to not get the junk out of your home. Sidestep the excuses by renting a dumpster from a reliable company.
One of the best things about renting a dumpster is that some dumpster rental companies will do everything they can to recycle or donate reusable goods from your dumpster so that you don't have to sort those things out yourself. You can put everything in your dumpster that you want gone, and they'll take care of the rest!
Organize What You Do Keep
It's impossible to find or even remember things that you keep in a cluttered space. Once you've done yourself the favor of getting rid of all of your junk, it's important to put everything in a proper place where you're likely to find it when you need it and be able to use it. This may require you purchasing organization systems for some things, but consider that an investment in your clean house.
Keep It Up!
Once you've got your home decluttered and organized, you need to keep a watchful eye out for your bad habits. Your cluttered mess didn't occur overnight the first time, and it will slowly creep back in to your life if you aren't careful! Throw away junk mail when it comes in. Keep your home tidy and organized. Ask yourself every so often if you really need some of the things that have been collecting dust. With a little vigilance, your home will stay clutter-free.
