Decluttering lately? I know when I started, I felt overwhelming dread.
Have you been procrastinating on a home decluttering project? Chances are the reason behind your hesitancy is feeling overwhelmed or just not knowing where or how to begin.
Not knowing these where or how to declutter can leave us in a standstill. When you find yourself stuck in this habit of avoidance, one of the best ways to still make progress is to start with baby steps. Even doing just one little thing is an improvement. To help along your journey to a clutter-free home, consider one of these ten starting-out decluttering steps you can take today. Over time, they can make a difference!
Create and Designate a Paper Zone
Papers are one of the chief complaints of those overwhelmed by clutter. It is delivered to us regularly! Choose and designate one area in your home as the catch-all location for your paperwork. Always place new papers in that location. You will be amazed at how this can clear up the house and eventually prove useful when taking on the paper tiger for decluttering itself. (Later though, this is to establish that location and consolidate the paper!).
Make Homes for Five Things
For items that never seem to get put away, think about why that is. Is it a purse set down at the end of a stressful day, or coats are all over the house and kitchen table area every day? Devise a plan for these items to have an actual space to live. Clutter is stuff without a home — make it a home! Ensure your family knows these homes exist for the items, and thus these new habits of returning items to an appropriate placement will become easy.
Donate Three (or x number) Pieces of Clothing
Clothes are often the worst to declutter because they can tend to become smushed and hidden away in our closets and drawers over time. Choose just three pieces (or whatever number you may choose) to give away each day while getting ready. To be best prepared for this, place a bag or bin dedicated to this task in your closet or nearby. Soon you’ll have a bucket full!
Go Through Your Medicines
Keep medicine, bandages, balms, and other health supplies together. Tackle your medicine cabinet, bringing together these items, removing expired items, and grouping them to create a clean and orderly place to hold the commonly used items.
Dump a Drawer, Just One at a Time
Just pick one drawer in your home to declutter. Dump it out and go through it. By physically removing everything, this lets you see everything all at once and makes the sorting process more manageable.
Create a Simple File System
Remember that paper zone that was designated? As it overflows, first, get rid of the trash items. Then scrutinize how you retain your papers. Is there a pattern that you follow? Create a few file folders to house the most common paperwork categories. Sort through the documents in your landing zone to file them quickly away.
Clear Just One Surface
Clear your kitchen table, a portion of your countertop, or a bedside table. Pick a surface you see daily and be sure to keep it decluttered. Establishing this surface as a clean spot will create a new habit for you. It may take some effort at first, but eventually, it will become natural. Later, as you add other locations, the house will begin to feel calmer and be easier to keep clean.
Empty a Shelf
Empty just one shelf. Now that you have another surface cleared that you notice every day to give you motivation, you can progress to another small task. Remember to continue to keep it neat.
Take the Donations to the Car
Once you have a few of these baby steps completed, you’ll likely end up with a sizeable amount of stuff to donate! Be sure to take the bag, box, or bin out to your car to deliver to your donation location. To truly advance on the effort you have made, its best to transfer the items on their journey to be donated to ensure they don’t get interspersed in the home again. (If decision making is one of the harder aspects of decluttering, who wants to have to declutter something more than once?)
Envision Your Finished Room
These small decluttering tasks are adding up. Look around and imagine how your room might look when wholly decluttered and organized. Create a vision board or put together a collage of how you would like the room to look. Visualization can be a powerful motivator, keep this in a place you see or refer to help often pep up your energy and dreams.
Taking little decluttering steps is easy; Shortly, you’ll be on your way to significant life changes! Once you experience the joy of more space and open time, you may find that these little steps become natural as a habit and you’ll see more places to expand decluttering. Over time, these steps can make a difference to the entire feeling of peacefulness in a room.
