If your home is less organised than you’d like, it can have a knock on effect in other areas of your life. Creating a life free from mess and chaos isn’t as difficult as you might think, even if you have little ones to factor into the equation. Decluttering is a must for a calmer, less stressful mind. Try these tips to start creating a life free from clutter.
Go for small, quick wins
Think of decluttering as a work-in-progress. It doesn’t all have to happen today. Focus on small wins that you can tackle each day. Over time, they add up to a less cluttered, calmer and more organised home and life. Adopting this mindset is important for making decluttering a big part of your life going forwards and creating a life that is calmer and less chaotic.
Bin the trash
Some of what looks like clutter is actually trash that no one has gotten around to throwing away or recycling yet. If you move around your home looking for items that fall into this category, you’ll probably be surprised to see how quickly you fill a bin bag.
Once your home is clear of trash, you can swap this tip to filling a bin bag full of items that can be recycled or donated.
Set Up a Central Communications Point
In a cluttered home, lots of things can slip through the cracks and get lost. Prime candidates? Important bits of paperwork that you can never seem to find amongst general clutter.
Keeping paperwork together in a central place can be a game changer for keeping stress to a minimum. When you know you need to access this kind of paperwork, just head for the place you’ve chosen to store it. This can be as simple as a basket or collapsible folder.
Store Clutter in Hampers
Not got enough storage in your home for bed linen, blankets, toys and other items that just seem to take over? Store them in hampers, bins or baskets.
Do the 12-12-12 Challenge
For every 36 items you come across, aim to throw out 12 of them, donate 12 of them and put the other 12 where they should live in your home. Not sure what should fall into each category? Think about how much you really love and need a particular item. What do you actually gain by keeping it in your life and would it make any difference to your life if you parted with it? Asking these types of questions can help you see if you’re holding onto items because of past attachments or because of genuine need.
Another trick is to think about how much you’d be willing to pay if you bought that same item today.
This challenge has been known to add a very competitive element to decluttering, so you can even get the rest of the family involved to speed up the process!
Decluttering Your Life
Your home may be the main thing that springs to mind when you think about decluttering but what about streamlining the rest of your life too? Decluttering your life is another smart move for keeping chaos to a minimum.
Reducing your non-essential commitments: Struggling to get any free time with a hectic social diary? Take a step back and think about how many of your social commitments are actually essential. Do they all bring you joy or do you find some of them stressful? Streamline your commitments to ones that are either essential or pleasurable. Anything else can go!
Decluttering your day-to-day routine: When it comes to the average day, how much of a structure do you tend to have? Lots of people tackle their to-do list randomly and this can affect how productive you are. It’s also a surefire way to add more stress and uncertainty. Having more structure around your to-do list can make a huge amount of difference. Write down everything you need to do during the week and allocate it to specific windows in your schedule. This way, you know everything will be done and you have capacity to deal with the curveballs.
Decluttering your friendships: Even your friendships can be decluttered, especially if you feel that there are people in your life who are draining you, rather than providing positive energy and support. It can sometimes feel like any type of friendship is better than nothing but toxic friendships can be hugely stressful. Decluttering friendships is very liberating and it frees up unnecessary stress and negativity from your life. It also makes space for new, more rewarding friendships.
Take some time this week and list each of the areas covered above. Then, feel which one stands out the most for you and start with that. You’ll find that as you begin to make these changes and feel the benefits, you’ll want to do more.
