Decluttering your Home
Is it difficult to maintain orderliness at your home?
Admit it, every now and then there were a lot of things from every angle of the house that should be cleaned and maintained. It is a highly important thing to secure to have an organized things in each room of the house.
So from here, we will discuss and understand the benefits of decluttering each spaces of your place to achieve cleanliness!
Let's face it, everything in your house was bought for a reason - and having bought it, we feel an obligation to keep it. In order to DE clutter, we need to look at things from a different angle - then we'll be able to see our home more dispassionately and get a real understanding of what is clutter and what isn't.
When is clutter a problem? For many people clutter can be an energy zapper, or they waste inordinate amounts of time looking for things they can’t find. In extreme cases, people may suffer from obesity or depression when a life of consumption extends beyond "stuff."
What is clutter? Clutter is anything you’re keeping around your house that does not add value to your life. De-cluttering is all about making room in your home for the things that matter.
Here are a few things to keep in mind as you get started de-cluttering your home:
STEP 1
Write down or make a map of all the rooms and 'clutter hot spots' you want to tackle.
Give each space a grade based on the severity of the clutter
Do one room or one space at a time.
Set completion dates for each phase of your cleanup.
In addition to completion dates, you should plan time to work on specific areas when you expect de-cluttering those spaces to take longer than a few hours, such as a basement or a garage.
Take note of the clutter zones that heighten your stress, then look to these transformations for inspiration to get your home in order.
STEP 2
Create a Sorting System
As you go through the rooms and spaces in your house, you will need a system for sorting the items you find. You can create your own method, or use one of the most popular organizational tips: the “Three-Box Method.” This method forces you to make a decision item by item, so you don’t end up with a bigger mess than the one you started with.
Gather three boxes or storage bins, label them as follows:
TO KEEP - Empty after you complete a space. Items you keep should go in their newly designated home. Optimally these things should be stored neatly in a container or drawer. Label if desired.
GET RID OF -Empty after you complete a space. Store any items you want to give away or sell outside your home. Either put them in the vehicle you plan to transport them in or store them temporarily in a garage or an attic.
PUT IN STORAGE-Empty into storage containers after you complete a space. As you fill your containers, label them or drop an inventory sheet on top and neatly put them on your storage area.
Getting rid of stuff is difficult for everyone, but especially for people who treasure the memories connected with the possessions. We have found that acknowledging the emotions that can arise in this process, and then accepting that we no longer need many of the objects our memories are connected with, can be very helpful. We have used the phrase Keep the memories, get rid of the stuff!” so often that we consider it our mantra.
Helpful Decluttering Tips for Your Home
Remember, you have options when it comes to getting rid of clutter, so you don’t have to feel guilty about putting everything in the trash. Mentally prepare yourself for decluttering your home and keep the following concepts in mind when you are struggling to part with something you haven’t used in a while.
Start with small decluttering projects that feel big. Before you commit to an entire room, start with a few small projects that will give you a sense of accomplishment when you’re done.
Clear off flat surfaces. Countertops, shelves and other flat surfaces are clutter-magnets. If you need to keep a few things on the countertops, that’s OK, but make it a goal to free your flat surfaces of most clutter. Make space in drawers or add small boxes or bins to your shelves for paper items. Only keep frequently used, essential small appliances on kitchen countertops – the rest should be put away or donated if you never really use them.
Keep like things together. Categorizing things as you go through them is imperative to organizing your home. In fact, keeping like things together forces you to organize your home. And it will make your life easier! Store like items close to where you will use them and you’ll not only know where they are when you need them, but you’ll reduce some of the little frustrations in your daily life.
The next section of our guide will take you through decluttering your house room-by-room.
Now that you have learned a lot, you need to tackle any decluttering project in your home, you are ready for our ridiculously thorough, room-by-room decluttering tips. Decluttering room-by-room is the most efficient way to declutter and organize your home. And you will feel a sense of accomplishment as you complete each room!
Let's start with the bedroom!
How to Organize & Declutter Your Bedrooms
Bedrooms often become dumping grounds for stuff that does not have a home in your house. When you think about it, you don’t really need more than a bed, a nightstand or two, storage for clothes, shoes and perhaps a home for jewelry and makeup.
The master bedroom is, in my opinion, the most important room in the house to keep decluttered and organized. After all, we don’t just clean it for guests, we clean it for our own quality of life. We deserve a place to come to at the end of a long day that is a sanctuary, where we can truly relax. It is almost impossible to feel peaceful in a cluttered and chaotic environment. We also start our days in this room when we wake up. Help yourself ease into the day surrounded by order and beauty. If you are married, this is the room where the marriage relationship is nurtured. If you have children, this is the room that is the example to your children of how a bedroom should be maintained. Don’t be one of those parents who tell your children to go clean their room when your room is a mess! My most important advice about your master bedroom, is to look at it differently. Treat the room with respect and get the clutter out!"
How to Declutter Your Kitchen
You probably use your kitchen more than any other room in the house, and, if you cook even semi-regularly, you likely have a lot of stuff in it. Utensils, cookware, small appliances, food, spices, and more likely leave little space in your kitchen cabinets, drawers, and counter tops. We want to help you take back your kitchen from clutter! Our kitchen declutter tips will make this space more enjoyable and hopefully make cooking less stressful.
Start by Decluttering Kitchen Countertops
Kitchen counters are clutter-magnets in most homes, so this is a great first step for anyone looking to declutter their kitchens. This small, two-step project will look and feel big when you are done!
Step 1: Clear everything off your kitchen counters except 3-5 essential items (such as a coffee maker or knife block). You can put the counter clutter on the kitchen table or on the floor, but get the stuff off the counter.
Step 2: Put away or find another home for everything you cleared off the counter. If you’re left with a lot of papers or junk mail, trash them or move items that need to be addressed to your office or workspace.
This is a project that only takes a few minutes, unless you have piles of things in your kitchen, in which case you may need an hour. Either way, it will feel like a NEW kitchen when you are done!
Divide the Kitchen into Zones
We recommend decluttering one section of your kitchen at a time to avoid a potentially bigger mess. Assigning zones can also help you improve the organization of your kitchen things.
Identify space near the stove for cooking utensils, pots and pans. These items should be conveniently located near where you cook.
Unless you bake every day, store your baking supplies away in a cabinet or on a shelf – if you have a mixer on your countertop try to corral your baking supplies near it.
Storage bags, cling wrap, aluminum foil and similar items should get their own zone, as well as cleaning supplies.
Purge and Relocate
As you start to declutter your kitchen, consider throwing away or donating any items you come across that haven’t been touched in a year. When you decide to keep an item you use infrequently, you may want to put it away in storage in another part of your home, especially if you’re low on real estate in your kitchen. And be sure to move anything you come across that belongs in another zone to its new home.
How to Declutter & Organize Your Bathrooms
We’ll cut straight to the chase with bathrooms. Decluttering a bathroom mainly requires purging and organizing the items that consume your counter tops, shelves and drawers. You will probably be surprised not only by what you have but how much you have of some items as you go through everything.
Follow this simple four-step process for decluttering your bathrooms:
Pull all of your stuff out of the bathroom closets and drawers. Some experts recommend decluttering multiple bathrooms at once so you really get an idea of how much excess you have – you may have enough soap to last you for a year and a half and not even know it. However you decide to do it, clear off countertops, empty drawers and completely clean out linen closets in or near your bathrooms.
Put like things together. This is an important step in organizing your bathroom clutter. Make piles for medicine, towels, toiletries, cleaning supplies, makeup, etc… so you can see exactly what you have cluttering up your bathroom.
Throw away or plan to donate the excess. Often times we have multiple bottles or boxes of half-used stuff in our bathrooms. For multiples of the same thing, combine them and clear out some empty bottles or packaging. In the case where you are holding onto something that only has a little left, give yourself a month to use it, if you don’t use it throw it away. Do you have more towels than you will use in a month? You may want to donate excess towels to a local animal shelter. And if you are holding on to something (a gift perhaps) that you never really liked, you should pull the trigger and get rid of it.
Put your bathroom back together, but keep it organized. Dividers, drawer organizers, small boxes and baskets are essential for bathroom organization. With a lot of small items floating around in your bathroom, you don’t want to have to dig through a drawer to find that one thing you need, especially when you are getting ready in the morning. Organizing your bathroom clutter doesn't have to cost you money either. Look for small boxes or plastic containers around the house that you can repurpose into drawer organizers.
Similar to other spaces in your house, your goal is to remove as many items from bathroom countertops as possible. If you have items you use daily, organize them neatly on a tray, or put them in an easily accessible drawer or on a shelf.
If clutter makes a come back and you don’t have the time hire a cleaning lady…
Karen’s Green Cleaning is here to help. Do not hesitate to contact us, and we will surely address your concern right away!