Declutter Your Home In 5 Simple Steps
If there is one thing that completely transformed the way I feel in my home this year, it has been decluttering. I homeschool and I have two kiddos in the house. I felt like I was always doing the same thing day after day. Dishes, laundry, picking up the living room & kitchen, vacuuming and that is it. I never made my way to the bathrooms. I stopped washing our sheets on a regular schedule. I just couldn’t find the time to reach any other areas of my house. Or so I thought. I know there are so many different resources out there for decluttering. I say go for whichever version motivates you to start the process. I found myself saying, “I’m going to start organizing my office this weekend.” The weekend rolled around and not only did I NOT start in my office, but it seemed to get worse. I found it a struggle to not feel overwhelmed by my home. And don’t even get me started on the laundry talk. Ya’ll laundry is by far my least favorite household task. At least it used to be. I found that after this process in my home it feels like a completely different space for me.
What better time to declutter than today? With every season comes lots of cooking, family and friends gathering, dirty dishes, and don’t even get me started on the toys that seem to filter their way out of my children's room into the rest of the house. If you can give yourself some peace of mind today from reading this then I would feel that I helped someone in some small fraction of a way. As a homemaker, I feel that every mom or dad out there understands the frustration of feeling overwhelmed with STUFF. By implementing these few steps into your routine you will be able to relax more. Enjoy the company that is over instead of worrying if they noticed you haven’t deep cleaned your bathroom in.. let’s just say awhile. Seriously, this is such a simple process and you can choose to do as much or as little as you want/need. Here is what I did:
Step 1- You need to feel motivated. Turn on music, listen to your favorite podcast, let the kids play in the backyard, or work in total silence. It doesn’t matter. Whatever works for you is what works for you. But you need to find that motivation within yourself. Or else, this isn’t getting done. If you just can’t find it within you to start that day then I recommend waiting until the following day. The truth is some days we just feel motivated, and some days we don’t. If you start this on one of those days you aren’t feeling it, you won’t get as much done and you aren’t going to put your heart into what you are doing. Or maybe that’s just me.
Step 2- Start with one room a day. It doesn’t matter if you have a few hours to work in the space or only 30 min before work. Work on one room a day until you go through your entire house. If you have extra time to spare one day, and you are still feeling in the mood, then move on to the next room.
Step 3- If the room has cabinets (kitchen, laundry room, bathrooms, etc.) then I recommend removing every single thing from the cabinets. Clean the inside of the cabinets out and then start placing things back in the cupboards in an organized fashion. If something is out of place and didn’t belong in the cabinets then it is already removed from where it was before and you can then decide what to do with it.
This is where I got lost before when it came to not only decluttering, but just cleaning my house. Let me just give you an example. I would find myself let’s say cleaning my bedroom. I start with making the bed and then I would move on to cleaning off the top of my dresser. Let’s say I had a cup of water on it from the night before and a children’s book that I needed to bring back to my kids’ room. I would then leave my room and bring the dish to the sink and then go into my kids’ room and put their book away. But then, I realize there are dirty clothes on their floor. So I would pick up their clothes and take them to the laundry room. It is then I realize that I need to start the laundry. So I start a load. The top of my dryer is dirty from the lint that was removed so I go into the kitchen to get my spray and paper towel. Then I get sidetracked because there are dishes in the sink so I start washing the dirty dishes. Okay, woah what just happened here? Do you see where I am going with this? I started the day with the intention to get my room clean and I got sidetracked and ended up making my way to the kitchen, my kid’s room, the laundry room, and back to the kitchen. And guess what? My room is still dirty. Some people may be able to clean this way. I simply cannot. I then feel like I have done little things here and there in each room but at the end of the day, I don’t feel like one room is fully clean. That is how I came up with this system to declutter. If I didn’t stick to just one room at a time, I would feel as though my whole house was in chaos. My point for Step 3 is to not get distracted. Do not start working in another room until you have fully gotten done what you need to in the room you are working on that day.
Step 4- Laundry. When it was the day to work in our bedroom or my kids’ room I did not go through any laundry. I saved all of this until the end. The reason being is that I had dirty laundry that was stacked up that I was washing through the process. Once I started on someone’s wardrobe I wanted to completely go through it all at once. I organized my dirty laundry not by color, but by person and room. All my clothes went into a pile. My husband’s in another. Ethan’s in one and Ellies in another. Dirty towels in one and sheets/blankets/bedding in another. Once one pile was completely gone and everything had been put away then I would start on that person’s wardrobe first. Organizing and downsizing your clothing is a process all of its own. I will leave that for another blog post. I keep a capsule wardrobe for everyone in our family the best that I can and it works wonders in our lives.
Step 5- If you have decluttered one room a day in your entire house and haven’t reached your goal yet, I recommend repeating steps 1-4 over. One day at a time. One room at a time. Once you have completed one round of this process, you WILL see an improvement. It is impossible not to. Unless you didn’t start this process. If you go through another round, you will feel even better.
Decluttering is a process. For some, this process is a difficult one. Once you start, it will get easier and easier. I have gone through rooms in my house and went back through this process again and ended up donating things that I held onto the first time around. I believe being comfortable with releasing items in your home is a matter of making it a habit and allowing the process to become part of your new routine.
Tips to help the process go easier:
Storage bins are amazing for organizing. They come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, materials, and colors. I recommend not investing in any of these until you have decluttered most of the items in your home. You won’t know exactly what to store in them if you aren’t sure what you are keeping and what you are getting rid of. Also, you will find that as you downsize you will empty bins and containers that you already have in your home. You will find new ways to use those bins as storage along the way. If you are really lucky, you might even get rid of some of those containers because you have nothing to fill them with!
Stick to one room at a time. I know I said that above as part of the steps in the process, but I just can’t stress it enough. Also, trust your feelings throughout this process. Let’s say that on day 1 you worked on your kitchen. And the following day you were going to start in your living room but you woke up feeling the urge and energy to finish your kitchen, then go for it! This is just an outline of how I got my home decluttered in 8 days. I urge you to implement what works for you. I said it in the beginning and I will say it again. There are SO MANY ways to declutter. Pick what version works for you and get it done.
Do not go out and buy anything for your home before this process is complete. I feel like there were so many times where I donated something and thought that I could now replace that item with what I actually wanted. But I genuinely feel that once your room is decluttered with all of the things that were sucking the energy from you, you will see the space in a whole new light. Your vision for the room might come to life differently than it had before. Sometimes people think that they need a fresh design in their space when really they just need to downsize on the things that aren’t fulfilling them.
Work in categories. I may stick to one room at a time but I try to stick to one category at a time and move on from there. Maybe in your bedroom, you have books. Containers under your bed of things that you have stored. Nightstand drawers. A photo box with sentimental items such as cards, photos, letters, etc. Things can feel overwhelming very quickly when everything is pulled out at once. Pick one corner of the room and work your way around it until you ended up where you started.
Keep donation boxes and bags in the trunk of your car after you have decluttered in a room. If you keep it in your house it can feel messy. If your kids are anything like mine, they will dig through the items and pull things out. It was probably hard enough for you to release some of those items originally. You don’t need to say goodbye to those things again and again. Save yourself the energy and keep them out of sight. I used to hold onto things and I would create a donation pile in my house. I would tell myself that I would finally donate them once I am done with the whole house. But that time probably won’t ever happen. The truth is that decluttering is just something that you will always be doing. It won’t be as dramatic once you have been doing it a while. In fact, it will be like second nature to you. Like brushing your teeth. It won’t be a big burden but just something that happens in your home on the regular.
I used to struggle with what to know to donate and what to sell. I created a rule for myself that if I couldn’t sell it for $50 or more then it was just something that I would donate. That is hard for me to admit because I can be frugal and I used to feel like I was just throwing money away. But if you envision someone else purchasing that item and it actually going to good use in their home it might make the process easier on you. I found that if I had something I could sell that was less than $50 then it would (A) Collect dust and I never ended up posting it for sale or (B) I would list it, it would take sometimes months to sell or wouldn’t at all. That is fine if things take time to sell, but when you have a whole pile of things and it is just sitting there making you feel bad then I recommend taking a step back and asking yourself if it is worth it or not.
Declutter the rooms first that cause you the most stress or are the most used rooms in the house. For us, the heart of the home is the kitchen/dining and living room. These are also the rooms that I clean first when I am picking up the whole house. They create the biggest difference for me when they are clean. Pick those rooms for you and start with that.
There you have it. An outline of how I decluttered my home in 8 days. I am a stay at home mom so I might have more time on my hands than you do. I also only have 8 rooms in my house and I live in 1,000 square feet. I understand that your circumstances may be different. I really believe anyone can spare at least 20 min a day working on one room a day in their home. You WILL see a difference. Remember, one room at a time. Get to it! I know you can do it. I can’t wait to hear your tips on how you declutter.