Studies show that a decluttered home leads to anxiety, stress, and dissatisfaction. Decluttering your home does not have to be hard. Take the time to plan how you’re going to get organized and stay that way. By becoming aware of your habits, building good habits, and implementing certain products and procedures, you can make it super easy to not only declutter your home but make most of it automatic.
Step 1: Analyze Your Mess
Look at the areas that you need to declutter. What items are lying around precisely causing the clutter? Notice them and remember to ask yourself why they keep ending up there.
Maybe you bring in all your mail after work but never get to it because you leave it all over the kitchen table. Train yourself to move it somewhere where you know you will eventually read it and throw it away as you go through it, so you eliminate touching it repeatedly or moving it around to save steps.
Perhaps you have a lot of extra clothes lying around. Before you do your laundry each time, look at the clothes you wear the most and get rid of the clothes you barely reached for, or haven’t reached for in an entire year. Eliminating things, you don’t use now will make space for what you use.
Step 2: Know What’s Most Essential
You probably have things you use every single day, often. If you must take them out and put them away each time you use them, you’re unlikely to use them or if you still use them unlikely to put them away. Know what’s essential and be realistic about how you’re going to deal with it.
Keep your essentials items somewhere you can reach them easily while keeping the less essential materials behind it to make it easier to use and keep organized. This way, you are not pushing and throwing items out of the way while you are reaching for daily items.
Step 3: Create More Storage Space
Buy bens or containers to organize your stuff. Small baskets, like wicker baskets, are great for keeping bathroom items, newspapers, magazines, or keys organized consistently, so everything is easy to find and use.
For example, shoes, coats, and outside gear are often clutter-points in the home. This can be easily solved by purchasing a shoe rack, coat rack, and whether you have it or not, creating an entryway into your home that has a space for these things is going to make a massive difference in the clutter. It can help to take the time to notice how you use items in your home so that you can create the right storage solution that works for your needs.
Step 4: Create Designated Spots or Zones
Keep items in spots that make sense and group similar items together. For example, if you love coffee, create a small coffee bar that includes all the essentials to make coffee such as coffee grounds, specialty pots, ingredients, filters, mugs, so forth.
Notice how you use space in your home. Do you like to knit in a certain spot in the house? Keep your knitting gear nearby. Setting up these zones throughout your home for yourself and your kids is going to keep the cutter organized and make you all more likely to do your activities too.
Step 5: Clean as You Go
A great way to avoid decluttering a home altogether is by cleaning as you go. This works best if you have invested in the right storage solutions and set up the proper zones of action in advance.
Before you leave the room or stop an activity, quickly put away items. While you are doing this, you will also notice a pattern of areas that could use some better organization. Don’t skimp on the organization tools and storage solutions, and don’t be afraid to nix an idea if it doesn’t work to try something better.
As you can see, the trick to a decluttered home is being aware of your habits around the house. As you pay attention, you will learn exactly why your home becomes cluttered in the first place. Implement these five simples steps to tidy up your home and keep it that way to help you have more stress-free days.
