Everyone has that one room or portion of their house that you don’t even want to think about cleaning out and organizing. Whether that area is the living room, laundry room, bedroom, garage, or just general disorganization you see seeping all through your home, it can be a huge task to take on. This task can become especially daunting if you have years of clutter to sort through and organize, and don’t have the mental energy to know where to begin.
Well, with spring just around the corner, what better way to refresh your home with a fresh slate and a new and improved organized look? With these easy steps, decluttering your home will feel less like a looming dark cloud over your head, and more like a realistic goal you can achieve!
Have a Clear Goal in Mind
Before beginning the dreaded task of sorting through your stuff and decluttering, the first thing you should ask yourself is what you’re hoping to achieve from this organizational process. Are you hoping to have a bit more extra space in the garage? Are you trying to create more space for fun games and activities in the kids’ rooms? Or are you simply looking for a more minimalistic and tidier space?
Focusing on and having a desired end goal, will help the decluttering task feel less daunting and help you to feel more motivated. Without a clear vision in mind, it can feel like you’re just aimlessly sorting through your items without a specific purpose. Think about what would best suit your personal needs and lifestyle, and how you would ideally like your space to be used. Once you have a clear picture of what that looks like, you can start the actual decluttering process, but keep your desired vision in your head throughout the process.
Sort Through All Your Belongings
The most important thing to do before starting your spring cleaning is to sort through all your belongings in a specific area. For example, if you’re thinking of decluttering your bedroom, first look through all your bedroom drawers, closets, and bookshelves individually to see all the items that you have kept over the years. We often forget about what we own, especially with items that are rarely used or used seasonally. That’s why going through what you have, will help refresh your memory and give you a better sense of how much space you’ll need to organize all your belongings properly and efficiently.
When doing this, you’ll probably begin to notice just how many items you’ve completely forgotten about or no longer need. Old toys, an excess of books, or clothes that are too small are all valuable items that can be donated to charities, community libraries, or places of worship, to help others get good use out of them. A good rule for deciding whether you should keep an item or not is to think about whether you’ve used this item regularly in the last six months. Of course, certain seasonal items will only be used around specific times of the year, but if there are books, appliances, games, or electronics you haven’t touched in a while, you should consider repurposing them to a new home.
Once you’ve sorted through all your belongings and set aside items for donation or garbage disposal, you’ll begin to see the clutter as more manageable.
Be Mindful of Furniture
After you’ve sorted through which items made the cut to stay in your home, it’s time to start thinking about how you’ll be storing away or displaying these items. For items that are not regularly used, you’ll probably think about packing them away in storage bins or vacuum-sealed bags. This is a good idea for items that you won’t be using more than once or twice a year, and can be safely put away in your garage, attic, or storage room without any hassle.
However, for items you need access to regularly, consider investing in multi-purpose furniture pieces, such as ottomans, dining tables with drawers, or beds with extra storage space. These are all excellent pieces to give you some extra space around your home, while seamlessly blending into the desired aesthetic of your space. By maximizing your space through existing furniture pieces, you’ll be able to better organize your items, without having to toss items in bins and bags that you’ll most likely forget about later.
It’s also a good idea to invest in some vertical storage pieces, as this will help you make the most of your space. Furniture pieces such as wall-mounted storage shelves or hooks, a hanging rack for your bikes in the garage, or a hanging pot rack in the kitchen to clear up your island, can be life-changing pieces. Making the most of the vertical space in your home is essential in optimizing your free areas, and avoiding unnecessary clutter.
Store by Convenience
Once you have a general idea of how and where you want to place your belongings, it’s time to start putting everything away in its new home! However, it’s very important that you store your items appropriately based on how much you use them, and how often you’ll need to access them. For example, things like travel luggage or seasonal items, should be placed further back in your storage room. While kitchen appliances that are regularly used, should be placed closer to the front of your cabinet or pantry space.
By using this method to properly place your items, it will severely lessen the stress and struggle of trying to rummage through and find certain items in any given space. All the items you regularly use will be right there waiting for you, and at the same time, you’ll know where all your lesser-used items are, when needed.
Make Sure Everything Has a Place
While larger items tend to be easier to organize and store away, it’s also important to make sure that the everyday, smaller items also have their own respective place to go. Items such as a loved blanket that’s on your couch, or that one purse you take to work that ends up in different places around your home, should all have their assigned, designated place.
Why not place some hooks or a small cabinet to place all the things that are taken to work or school by you or your family to prevent these items from trailing into your home? Or a woven basket in the living room to place all blankets in, when they’re not in use?
Having assigned spaces for these types of items will help everyone know where these items are at all times, but also prevent the home from looking disorganized and cluttered with random knick-knacks. This is especially important for sentimental items that seem to be randomly all over your home. Make sure they are either packed away safely and labelled, or have a designated spot. For example, old cards, photos, or tickets from a once-in-a-lifetime event you attended, can all be organized together in a scrapbook or memory box.
Once everything (big and small) has its place, you will begin to see your home is seamlessly more peaceful, organized, and free of those stressful conversations about where’s this and that.
Make Sure Everything is Labelled and Visible
Once you’ve found that perfect spot for everything in your home, it is crucial that you label everything that is not visible to you at first glance. For example, any items placed in storage bins or bags that you cannot see the contents of, should be labelled to avoid forgetting about these belongings. As they say, “Out of sight, out of mind”, and this is exactly what will happen if you cannot see everything packed away.
This is especially important for items such as excess kitchen cutlery or porcelains that end up in an unlabelled box or bin in your storage room, or that reusable bag full of tools, tapes, and hardware that’s hanging in your garage, that you can’t remember the contents of. By labelling exactly what’s in every bin, bag, or storage container you’ll know exactly what you own, where it is, and most importantly avoid making unnecessary purchases in the future.
Only Buy as Much as You Have Space For
The last tip to decluttering your home is to commit to the process and avoid future impulse buys. Now that your space is well-organized and you can visibly see what you have and don’t have, it is very important that you only buy what you have space for.
We all know that a decent sale can be too good to resist sometimes, but from now on, if you don’t have any space in your kitchen pantry or garage to store extra items, then you’ll have to proudly walk past those discounted items in the store. But, in all seriousness, only buying what you have space for, will help avoid future clutter and feeling like you’re outgrowing your space with unnecessary items.
While the organizing and decluttering process can feel draining and never-ending, by the end, you’ll feel proud and accomplished for taking on such a task and committing to see it through. Remember, organization and decluttering is an ongoing commitment, not a three-step process that will magically transform your life! But, with these few organization tips, you’ll be on the path of living more efficiently, organized, and peacefully.
