They say a tidy home is a tidy mind, and taking time to declutter your house or apartment will help you feel much more organised and calm, with more time to sit back, relax, and enjoy your free time. However, when youre surrounded by mess and clutter, it can be hard to know where to start. Things pile up quickly and with work, family, and other commitments, it can often feel like theres no time to get on top of the mess without spending all of your free time cleaning.
However, living with clutter can actually waste more time than it takes to organise it; trying to get out of the door in time in the morning is made even more stressful when you cant find your keys, and sorting out important business over the phone is made harder when youre struggling to find the right paperwork on a desk full of mess. Decluttering your home can take minutes, all you need to do is start. Here are our top decluttering tips to help you tackle your mess.
- Start small. Take 15 minutes and tackle your junk drawer. You know the one; its the drawer that you throw things in when you dont know where else to put them. Youll be surprised at how much you can do when you dedicate just 15 minutes solely to that task. If you dont have a use or a place for something in the drawer, throw it out, or donate it.
- Leading on from our first tip, designate a place for everything. If something has a use but nowhere to live, invest in some extra storage. Invest in a desk tray for important paperwork, and some hooks to hang up your keys. Make sure that each place of storage has a specific purpose, to avoid building up another junk drawer.
- Focus on flat surfaces. The most common areas in the house that attract clutter are empty, flat surfaces. Kitchen counters, tables, dressing tables, and even stairs are easy places to just dump things on. Tackle one cluttered surface at a time, and put everything back in its designated place. Then, once the surface is clear, make sure to keep it a no clutter zone.
- Challenge yourself to walk into a room, pick up five things that are lying around and not in use, and put them all back where they belong. Leave the room and then enter again, and pick up the next five things you see out of place. Repeat this process until the room is clutter free.
- Invest in a box for those items youre unsure of. When youre going through your belongings, theres some items you know you love and want to keep, and others youre not bothered about throwing straight out. However, theres always some things that you never use, but hold on to ˜just in case. Put these items in a box, and store it somewhere out of the way. In a few months time, go back to the box and see what you still think you need. If you dont need it (and you most likely dont, if you havent touched it since you stored it) then you can simply throw it away/donate it.
- Clear out your medicine cabinet/first aid box. We often hold on to half empty boxes of tablets,tubes of cream, old bandages etc. Dispose of all the outdated medicines that you have no need for, and restock your box with fresh, clean bandages and other essentials, and store it in a safe place.
- Our bedrooms are often one of the most cluttered spaces in the house, with even the tidiest people occasionally throwing piles of clothes on the floor. Pile all of the clutter that is on your bedroom floor onto your bed, and dont stop until everything is either put away in a wardrobe or relevant cupboard, placed in a washing basket, or thrown away, and your bed is clear.
Remember, decluttering once doesnt mean that your house will be constantly tidy from now on. Clutter easily builds back up. Once you have worked on making sure that everything has its place, avoid clutter building back up by taking just five minutes every night just to clear up any stray items, and put them back where they belong.