Having a home that’s comfortable and organized makes a positive impact on your well-being and how you manage your day to day routine. Make your home a relaxing haven with these practical ideas. Try these simple ways to declutter your home. Creating a home that inspires you is part of the process. Let’s get started right now.
Walk Through Your Home
How does your home look and feel to you? Are the tables and shelves neatly arranged? Are you happy with your pictures and décor?
What do you feel when you sit in each room and survey the area? Tranquil and relaxed? Uncomfortable or anxious to leave the room?
Finish this sentence: “Regarding the furniture and arrangement of personal items in my home, it would make me happier if _____________.” Maybe you’d like to remove some furniture or you need to add some storage space.
Focus on how you feel in the room and what would make you feel better. For example, you don’t enjoy walking into your spare bedroom because it has become a “dumping ground” for items you don’t know what to do with.
Gain clarity about how you much better you’ll feel if you can free your home of clutter and organize the items you want to keep. It’s time to consider getting rid of unused and worn out items. Imagine how your home would look without all of the extra stuff. You’ll have more rooms for things you enjoy. You’ll experience a sense of “newness.” You might feel more relaxed as well.
An additional benefit to clearing out each room is how contented you’ll feel that the things you aren’t using can be helpful to someone else. Furniture and clothing can be donated to the Salvation Army, Goodwill, or other charitable organization. Get the good vibes of giving to others.
Unfortunately, decluttering your home can quickly feel overwhelming and frustrating. If you’re afraid to get started because it seems like so much work, try the tips below. It is much easier to conquer this seemingly large task, if you break it down into smaller steps.
One Room at a Time
Tackle only one room at a time as you declutter your home. This will make your task appear much less daunting and less stressful. Avoid moving on to the next room until you’ve completed the last one. So try these 7 simple steps to declutter your home – starting now.
1. Choose the least cluttered room. Select a room that you can make good headway in a short amount of time, rather than the most challenging one in the house. Once you’ve chosen your room, start early so you have as much time as possible to work on decluttering and organizing.
2. Divide and conquer. Go through everything in your chosen room and sort out items you no longer want. (If you don’t have time to go through an entire room then attempt to do one cabinet at a time.) Everything that you touch in the room should go into one of four categories: Things you want to throw away, things you want to donate or sell, things that should remain where they are, and things that you want to keep but that are in the wrong room.
Use this sorting method for every item in each room. When you’re finished, you will have four distinctive piles or areas in the room. Each item in the room will be in one of the four piles.
3. Remove trash. Simply getting rid of all the garbage is going to make a big difference.
4. Remove donation items. Anything that you intend to sell, give away or donate should come out next. Store these things somewhere else in the house for now. Continue to add to this section from each room in your home until you’re ready to make one single donation or yard sale.
5. Sort the “belongs elsewhere” section. Do not simply move these items into another room; otherwise you’ll need to sort them again. Designate a box or container for each room for which you have items. Only keep the items you truly need and want so that you can transfer them into the right room without having to sort them again later.
6. Organize what’s left. Now that you’ve removed a lot of extra stuff from your room, you can organize everything that remains. When you’re only working with the things that are supposed to be in the room, decluttering and organizing becomes much simpler.
7. Repeat this process to declutter your home. Continue steps 1-6 in each room until you’ve finished the whole house. Hooray, in a short amount of time, your house will be clutter-free and your home will shine.
Enjoy Your New Clutter-Free Home
Once you’ve finished organizing your house, take a few minutes each day to ensure everything you’ve used during the day is back in place so you can continue to enjoy your new clutter-free home. Read our other blog posts to get decorating inspiration.
If you are looking for a one or two bedroom apartment rental that you will enjoy living in and keep organized, check out our Section 8 rentals in Baltimore.