Having a lot of clutter in your home can be frustrating. It takes up space, so your home feels smaller, and it can be difficult to clean with lots of stuff in the way. Here are some easy tips for sorting through the clutter and embracing minimalism in your home:
1. Remove anything that’s not useful, beautiful or joyful
When you’ve lived in the same home for years, it will often be full of stuff you’ve accumulated without thinking. That’s why decluttering experts recommend getting rid of anything that’s not useful, beautiful or joyful.
Obviously, you need to keep hold of practical stuff, from cooking utensils to clothing, and you’ll want some beautiful decorative items, although you may want to keep these to a minimum. Joyful items include things that are sentimental, but again, you should try to be objective when possible and only keep things that genuinely make you happy.
2. Keep things you don’t use often in storage
There are a lot of items that people want to keep hold of, either because they’re useful but not used often, or because they are being kept for future use. However, you don’t necessarily want this stuff around the house all the time. Consider renting one of The Lock Up’s Honolulu storage units and you can free up space in your home and instantly cut down on clutter.
3. Work on easier rooms first
Hate decluttering? It’s not easy for everyone, so it’s worth starting out on an easy room first. The kitchen is usually a good place to start, as there are few sentimental items and you’re basically just getting rid of broken and obsolete items. Once you see how much of a difference a declutter makes, you can then move on to more complicated rooms like bedrooms and living areas.
4. Get yourself prepared
Set a date for when you are going to do your big declutter and get yourself ready by ensuring you have the right supplies:
- Boxes are useful for packing things away and putting into storage – you can also use boxes when sorting things like clothes, by giving them labels such as ‘keep’, ‘donate’ and ‘recycle’
- Make sure you have plenty of trash bags for easy disposal
- Consider using a waste disposal service if you have a lot of stuff – book it for the day after your big declutter to motivate yourself
- Buy some tape, sharpies and labels so you can get things packed and organized
You should also try and draft in other members of the household to help you out, as this will make the job much simpler.
If you’re nervous about decluttering, the simple tips above will help you get the job started. It can often be daunting to see the piles of stuff in your home and wonder how you’ll even begin to sort it, but once you get started, you’ll feel so much better and this will motivate you to do more and more decluttering around the house.
