Home Decluttering: The Quick and Easy Guide

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What is Decluttering

Being the well-read, funny, and obviously good-looking person that you are, you’ve most likely heard of the term decluttering before.

It’s pretty hard to miss these days especially if you’ve ever found yourself skimming through a magazine or falling into the black hole we lovingly call the internet.

But what exactly is decluttering? And why are so many people obsessed with it since Marie Kondo made it cool?

According to good old Merriam Webster, decluttering means “to remove clutter from a room.”

Which makes perfect sense since the prefix de- means ‘from’.

The English language is fun, right?

Plus, being the incredibly cool person that you are, you also know that clutter is all of the extra stuff we all have lying around for no other reason than the fact that we just haven’t taken the time to deal with it yet. It’s all starting to make sense now.

Decluttering is removing all of the unnecessary items that no longer serve an important purpose in your home.

In other words, clutter is

• extra stuff
• unnecessary
• untidy
• junk

And decluttering is

• keeping the right amount of stuff
• necessary
• tidy
• the removal of junk

If I haven’t convinced you that decluttering is the right thing to do yet, I’m not sure what will ever change your mind. But I’ll certainly try.

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How Decluttering Improves Your Life

So why should you declutter anyway? Well, have you ever noticed how much stuff you have? Just bringing in the groceries and the mail alone will clutter up your countertops in no time.

If you’re anything like me, your anxiety increases exponentially with every item you see stacking up on countertops, tables, and on the floor. You can’t stand messiness, and clutter is the messiest of messes.

Decluttering improves your life by giving you more of the things that you do enjoy, like free time and relaxation, and less of the things that you don’t enjoy, like stress and anxiety. In fact, decluttering improves your life in many of the same ways that other forms of self-care do.

The only obstacle is that the thought of a major decluttering project can feel so overwhelming times, that you just don’t have the energy to even start.

But the good news is that decluttering doesn’t have to be a stress-inducing, time-consuming, energy-sucking undertaking in order to be effective. It is possible to declutter your entire house the fast and easy way.

So what excuses could you possibly have left for not decluttering already?

Decluttering For Minimalism

I’m a proud minimalist. I don’t make a habit out of shopping for fun, and I’m very intentional about the purchases I do make. And yet, my home still accumulates so much junk day after day and week after week it’s hard to believe.

Just thinking about this has me picturing my kids’ backpacks overloaded with old assignments, my husband’s tools strewn about, and the dog’s toys littering the floor.

The thought alone makes me want to crawl back into bed and never get out. My bed is peaceful, but my cluttered living room is not. Know what I’m talking about? I’ll bet you do.

Decluttering for minimalism is all about removing the excesses from your home and your life. With less physical, mental, and digital clutter to deal with, you can focus more on the things that actually matter to you.

Lucky for you, I’m all about living simply and finding the easiest and fastest ways to accomplish things these days.

And I’m happy to share my best decluttering tips so that you can do the same.

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Decluttering Tips For Your Home

These 10 decluttering tips will have your home or office looking clean and organized in no time:

1. Think Small

Trying to declutter your entire house or office at once is so overwhelming, that you’re likely to give up. So think small and complete one simple project at a time.

2. Focus Your Attention

Don’t let your mind wander from one area to the next. Focus on one area at a time and you’ll start to see results quickly.

3. Set a Timer

You don’t have to commit a whole weekend to your decluttering projects. Set a timer and get as much done as you can and then take a well-deserved break.

4. Take Inventory

Look around and take a visual inventory of what you own. You’ll find that you have far more possessions than you ever thought possible, and you’ll realize that you don’t even use a lot of them anymore.

5. Touch Each Item

It’s important to touch each item as you move through a room. Doing so will help you remember to consider every object, and it will help you decide if you still need it after all.

6. Think About its Purpose

As you touch each item, think about its purpose in your home or office. Is it still serving an important purpose? And would you buy it again if you could do it all over?

7. Decide Where it Should Go

Each item you own needs a designated space. As you touch each item, decide if it stays where it is, gets moved to a new location, or gets sold, donated, or thrown away. Having the right moving supplies on hand will help you get this job done fast.

8. Use Storage Solutions

Once your decluttering project is done, it’s time to use storage solutions to organize the things you do plan on keeping.

9. Get the Whole Family Involved

Every person who lives in your home or works in your office should be involved in decluttering. You can even get the whole team involved by making it a game and handing out prizes.

10. Commit to Less

The most important step in decluttering is to commit to owning less in the future. Just because something is being sold or is being offered to you, doesn’t mean you have to accept it.

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How to Declutter Fast

Ever wondered if it’s possible to declutter quickly? I assure you that it is.

You can easily declutter fast by completing one small decluttering project at a time, focusing on a single area, setting a timer, and getting everyone involved.

Here are the two favorite decluttering projects we complete as a family in our home. They are so simple they can be completed in less than 10-minutes and even the kids can help.

1. What Comes In, Must Go Out

Whenever new items are brought into the house to stay, find exactly the same amount of things to donate, sell, or trash. This rule works especially well during the holidays when people are handing you gifts left and right.

For example, when I picked up two new entry rugs to limit the amount of snow and slush we were dragging in, I immediately looked for two things to eliminate from our home.

It’s so ingrained in my brain now, that I don’t even have to think about it anymore.

Within minutes, I found two bins I’m no longer using to donate. And having a non-profit I support within two blocks of my house makes it especially convenient for me to donate items and not allow them to pile up.

Because the last thing I want to do is cram a bunch of things in my car and drive around with them for weeks instead of donating them right away. What? Don’t act like you’ve never done that before.

Trust me, decluttering doesn’t have to be stressful, exhausting, and time-consuming. With the ‘What Comes In, Must Go Out’ rule, you can declutter your house fast, and it couldn’t be any easier than that.

2. Find 10 Things (or 20 or 30).

Turning decluttering into a family-friendly game is easy and fun with ‘Find 10 Things’.

Basically, you determine the number of items that you’re looking for, set a timer, and race around finding items to remove from your home.

It works really well when you’re having your kids clean up their rooms too because it’s much less overwhelming than facing their entire room and not knowing where to start. Instead, they just need to focus on finding that exact number of things to purge, and then the rest is just straightening up.

I started this game with my own kids when they were still little, so it’s a routine that they expect and have learned to appreciate because of its simplicity.

But you can start playing it in your own home at any time.

Even if you get pushback the first time, making it a new family tradition is a fun way to tackle cleaning, and you can even award small prizes to whoever gets done first. I recommend bragging rights for the day, getting to pick a board game for everyone to play, or control of the remote.

Plus, ‘Find 10 Things’ makes a great segue into important family discussions about life too.

It opens the door to talking about people who are less fortunate than you are and how new kids will get to enjoy their old toys now since they’re being so kind and generous.

Decluttering doesn’t have to be just a boring chore. It also provides a life lesson that everyone in the family can learn from.

Benefits of Decluttering

And over time, these decluttering habits will lead to several noticeable changes in every aspect of your life.

While there are many benefits of decluttering, all of them revolve around bringing more favorable things into your life and removing unpleasant things from it. Decluttering is a way to take care of your home certainly, but it also helps you take care of yourself as well.

After decluttering, you’ll have:

More

• Free-time
• Money
• Productivity
• Items checked off of your to-do list
• Accomplishments
• Energy
• Relaxation
• Happiness

Less

• Time spent cleaning, fixing, and maintaining stuff
• Wasted money
• Feeling overwhelmed
• Items remaining on your to-do list
• Sense of obligation
• Exhaustion
• Stress
• Worry

First, you’ll notice that you’re no longer spending your nights and weekends constantly cleaning, fixing, and maintaining stuff. You’ll begin to realize just how many items in your home never get used in the first place. And it becomes even easier to eliminate these items from your home once and for all.

Second, you’ll be able to transfer your new decluttering skills to your job. Your desk will no longer look like a mess of papers and scattered office supplies, and your inbox will not have hundreds of unread messages piling up. You’ll also learn that the key to decluttering is to complete small actions over time, and this will help you winnow down your to-do list and leave you feeling accomplished.

Lastly, your level of stress will decrease greatly when you declutter your entire life. Everyone feels overwhelmed when huge projects are staring you down. It’s natural to feel overwhelmed and exhausted just at the thought of everything you need to get to.

But as you declutter both at home and at work, your to-do list will shrink, and you’ll start to relax more.

And even better, having the time for relaxation will lead to a greater sense of happiness.

That’s a win-win in my book.

Sources

• Etsy
• Harvard Health Publishing: The happiness-health connection
• Merriam-Webster
• StorageUnits.com: How to Purchase the Right Moving Supplies
• WebMD: How Clutter Can Affect Your Health

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How can decluttering reduce your stress at home? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.