Springtime gets all the attention as the season within which to clean your home from top to bottom. While spring cleaning may be the best time to deep clean the carpets and steam all the window treatments, the dawn of the new year may just be the most opportune time to declutter your home for a fresh start.
The holiday season may have left a lot of extra stuff in its wake. Throughout the year, clutter can easily accumulate, weighing us down both physically and emotionally, but the influx of holiday presents tends to push the situation over the edge. Now that the ornaments are back in their boxes and our goals for the year ahead are top of mind, let’s tackle clutter wherever we find it to kick this year off right.
Devise a Plan
Decluttering your entire home can feel like a daunting prospect. It helps immensely to break the project down into manageable chunks. Begin by drawing or listing the rooms in your home. For each room, estimate the time you believe it will take to declutter. Some rooms might be large and very cluttered, so they may take days. Others may be in better shape and only need an hour or two. Once you’ve mapped out a general game plan, it’s time to get decluttering.Prep for Success
You want to set yourself up for success, and one key is to minimize friction to relieve the burden of unnecessary and unwanted things in your home. One way to prepare to declutter is to set up four receptacles to capture every item that will be leaving the room you’re working on. They might be large boxes, garbage bins or bags, baskets, or any container you deem most appropriate. Label each: “Keep,” “Donate/Sell,” “Trash,” and “Relocate.” You’re ready to declutter.Start With an Easy Win
Choose the easiest room on your list to get started. That might seem counterintuitive. You may be tempted to want to tackle the most difficult room first to get it out of the way. There’s something about enjoying a quick win and checking off your first box, however, that sets momentum in place and drives you forward on your quest for an entirely decluttered home.Manage Your Time
As you continue working through each room, start your work early in the day and define for yourself what your end point will be in the time you’ve allotted. There’s nothing worse than dumping out a bunch of drawers in the late afternoon and feeling stuck amidst a heap of clutter come midnight with no end in sight. Every time you engage with this project, ensure you don’t bite off more than you can chew in one chunk of allotted time. Every bit of forward progress is getting you closer to the end goal.Wrap Up Well
At the end of each day, process your four containers. Put out the trash. Bring items for donation to the donation center (or at least your car). Have a designated area to store items you plan to sell. Relocate the items you planned to move.Track Your Progress
Use your original plan to track your progress. Come up with a fun way to celebrate each incremental success. Notice how much more freedom and peace you begin to enjoy as your space becomes less cluttered and filled only with the things you use or enjoy.Our homes are the base of our operations in life, and in recent times, our homes have become the place where we educate our children, where we work, where we spend time with loved ones, where we improve ourselves, and where we do most things. Creating an inspiring and uplifting space begins with clearing out the clutter to make way for what’s truly important. What a great way to begin a new year!
