Do you want your life to be organized and clutter-free? The answer to that is you need to know how to declutter your life. So, where do you start? You start by knowing how to declutter your home.
Also read:
How to Declutter Your Home: Why Should I?
Yes, decluttering your home can be the door for you to get your life organized. There are a lot of people who testified that they totally changed their lives when they chose to declutter and start organizing their stuff. Why? Because researchers have found out that the mess around us can cause stress. It also showed that the more clutter we have in our home, there is a higher chance that we are not taking care of ourselves as well.
According to the Oxford dictionary, clutter is a collection of things lying about in an untidy mass. This means that these are things that you keep around and inside your house that is unorganized and does not add value to your life. Clutter becomes a problem because too much stuff around the house can be a fire hazard or it might be a source of molds and dust that will lead to health complications.
Reasons On Why You Should Declutter
These are the reasons why it is important for you to know how to declutter your home.
- It helps you focus – clutter hinders your ability to focus since there is a tendency that the things around you make it difficult to decide on which thing needs to be done first. Decluttering allows you to keep only what needs to be kept, making it easier for you to focus and finish tasks faster. Declutter also is the first step for you to really focus on your goals.
- It boosts your mood – since clutter is considered as visual noise, it also makes you think that you do not have your life together. Because of this, it can lower your mood and self-esteem. Decluttering reverses this effect since it will let you organize your thing and reduce the visual noise around you. This will boost your mood and increases your self-esteem.
- It exercises your decision-making ability – clutter can be paralyzing because the pile-up of mess and stuff makes it harder for you to decide on what to do next. In decluttering, you need to decide on what to keep and what to dispose of, so it exercises your ability to decide. The more you know how to decide on small matters, the more it is easier for you to decide on big matters in life.
- It makes you more efficient – clutter wastes your time since you need to find certain things on top of other things. Decluttering allows you to organize your things, making it easier for you to know exactly where to find things. This will allow you to attend to what needs to be done faster and efficiently.
- It keeps you healthy – there is a high chance that clutter collects dust, molds, and mildew. These can cause mild to severe allergic reactions or other illnesses that will lead to health difficulties. Removing clutter and keeping your home clean will keep you and your household healthy.
- It helps you learn to let go – clutter happens when you hoard and do not know what to let go. However, decluttering helps you learn how to let go of things and lets you detach yourself from things that need to be in the past. When you learn to let go, you learn to live in the present.
Decluttering is a life-changer because it allows you to give room and space for things that actually matter.
Steps On How To Declutter Your Home
For you to know how to declutter your home, here are four simple cleaning act that will help you start decluttering.
Practicing minimalism
For decluttering to become easier, you need to practice minimalism.
Minimalism simply means living with less. The main goal of this practice is to declutter your space and life in order for you to focus on what really matters. Practicing minimalism results in higher productivity, refreshed mindfulness, and lets you prioritize important things in your life like relationship, saving, or traveling.
So, to start practicing minimalism, go over room by room. In each room, you need to sort out the necessities, the good to have, and the unwanted things.
- Necessities are those things that you can’t live without such as food, water, basic clothing and appliances.
- Good-to-have things are those things that you can live without but can be kept. These are things that are not necessities, but you still use to make your life at ease.
- Unwanted things are those stuff that you continue to keep but you don’t use it anymore.
When you declutter each room, sort everything inside of it based on these three things. Once you sort them, organize the necessities and the good-to-have according to your preference.
For the unwanted things, you should learn to say no to them already. There might be an urge to still keep them for future use. However, it is important that you let these things go. What you can do to them is either you donate them, or you sell them. If you donate them, you can help people who are actually in need of those things. If you sell them, you will make money out of your clutter.
Knowing how to declutter your room and practicing minimalism is one cleaning activity that will help you declutter.
Follow the KonMari method – What things spark joy?
Another cleaning act that can help you with decluttering is by using the KonMari method.
KonMari method is a kind of life system that practices simplifying and organizing your home by eliminating things and stuff around you that does not bring joy into your life. Marie Kondo, the creator of this method, describes this in detail in her best-selling book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”. She was also featured on Netflix where she teaches how to declutter and tidy up.
To start the KonMari method, you need to ask yourself this question, “Does this spark joy?”
This question will help you identify and assess what kind of things you want yourself to surround with. It helps you know the personal possession that brings you joy and lets you decide on the things that you need to keep.
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Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up (The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up)
Japanese decluttering guru Marie Kondo has revolutionized homes—and lives—across the world. Now, Kondo presents an illustrated guide to her acclaimed KonMari Method, with step-by-step folding illustrations for everything from shirts to socks, plus drawings of perfectly organized drawers and closets. Find in Amazon.
In this method, you need to remember five things:
- Tidy all at once. Instead of decluttering one room per week, allot an entire day or an entire weekend for tidying up.
- Visualize the destination of your decluttering. Before starting the method, make sure you have an idea of what ideal lifestyle you want to achieve.
- Determine items that bring you joy and are in line with the lifestyle you want to achieve.
- Tidy by category and not by location. There is a tendency that people store the items in the same category in different locations around the house. This method lets you declutter by category. For example, when you declutter clothes, get all the clothes in your home and declutter them all at once.
- Tidy in order. The KonMari checklist encourages you to declutter in this order: clothes, books, papers, Komono (Misc. things), and sentimental.
The KonMari method is an effective and proven system in decluttering that you can try.
- Keep or throw away things based on value and meaning
Another way to help you declutter is to keep or throw away things based on the value or meaning it can bring to your life.
Knowing your purpose and your value will help you define what kind of lifestyle you want to achieve. Once you do the process of knowing this, identifying which things to keep and which things to throw away will not be too difficult.
In fact, knowing how to declutter your house based on the value it brings to your life, will give you the motivation you need to actually work on the goals that you have. Surrounding yourself with things that will aid you in your purpose lets you achieve the value that you aim for.
Also, decluttering based on this concept is an important step for self-care. Getting rid of the excess and distractions from your surrounding can have a significant positive impact on your life and well-being.
So, when you declutter, ask yourself first “Does this add up value to my life?” If yes, then keep it. If no, then do not hesitate to throw it away.
Donate, throw a garage sale, or recycle unwanted things
Once you declutter, you will end up with a lot of things that can still be of use for some people. So, what you need to do is to sort them and know which are those that you want to donate, sell, or recycle.
The list of things that you can donate are:
- Clothing, shoes, and accessories that are still in good condition
- Towels and blankets
- Clothes hanger
- Kitchen goods
- Toys and stuffed animals
- Books, used crayons, and markers
- Furnitures
- Appliances
If you have decluttered these things, try to search the nearest donation centers where you can drop these off. There are a lot of charities and institutions that are in need of these things, as well as animal shelters. So, whenever you declutter, decide on which charity you will give your extra stuff.
Aside from donating, you can also conduct a garage sale for your decluttered things. When conducting a garage sale, here are the things you need to remember.
- Make an Inventory. List all the things that you want to sell.
- Make a price list. After making a list of the things you want to sell, price each of them according to their value.
- Label the items with the prices. Place price tags on your items so that when you sell them, your buyers will immediately know how much they cost.
- Choose a location where to conduct your garage sale. The bigger and spacious the space is, the better. Make sure it is also accessible for the crowd you want to target.
- Promote your garage sale. Post adverts online or paste pictures on bulletin boards. Make sure that your family, friends, and people around you know that you will conduct a garage sale.
By doing this, you will declutter your home and make money at the same time.
Also, when you declutter, identify which of those things you can recycle. There are a lot of recycling guides that will help you know what material and things you can reuse or recycle.
The things you can recycle are…
…Electronics
…Metals
…Rechargeable batteries
…Paper
…Cardboards
…Glass
…Plastic jugs, Aluminum, and tin cans
If you have these stuff, search possible ways online on how to reuse and recycle each of them.
Knowing how to declutter your home is an important thing in life. It is one of those clean-up act that everyone needs to enjoy doing. The way it will boost your being and life will help you have a fresh perspective and mindset.
So, go ahead and decide to declutter.
Don’t forget to check this wonderful resource:
Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up (The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up)
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