Even the idea of decluttering your home can become overwhelming. Unless cleaning your home is your hobby or you’re Marie Kondo, cleaning your home can be a bit of a challenge. We understand if you would want to sink into a pile of laundry and resign yourself to living in chaos-but you don’t have to. Rather than making decluttering one giant task to check off your to-do list, why not make it as a series of simple habit changes. We’re sharing with you a fool-proof, no-nonsense New Year’s resolution where your home will benefit from and I’m pretty sure Marie Kondo will be proud of it!
Declutter Your Most Used Space
To jump-start your clutter-free year, pick the busiest, most lived-in space in your home to tackle first. It could be your kitchen, living room, or your kids’ play room-whatever it is, muster the determination to work on gathering each item and asking yourself these questions:
Do I love this item?
Do I use it regularly?
If the word “no” pops into your head, set the item aside to trash or donate. It’s similar to Marie Kondo’s method of asking if an item “sparks joy”. You can perhaps use the same method she is using such as thanking the item that you will donate or throw for its service so it’s easier to let it go forever. Most of the problems concerning storage can actually be solved by neatly folding clothes so we suggest you do this when you’re tackling baby’s clothes or even yours.
2. Use What You Have Before Buying More
Before you start filling up your cabinets and drawers with multiples of the same items, make it a point to finish everything you have first. Use the last drops of olive oil, the last bit of toothpaste, the last pumps of lotion-you get the idea. Not only will this save you money but you will also waste less and bring less clutter into your home.
3. Clear Your Surfaces
With months-or, even years-of clutter that accumulated in your closet, the thought of organizing it might make your head spin. We suggest you start with a smaller task such as clearing flat surfaces in your homes such as your coffee tables, nightstands, dressers, desks, and kitchen countertops. These surfaces are breeding grounds of clutter so it will equally be satisfying to clean them.
4. Put Your Clothes Away Every Night
Have you ever tossed your clothes in a chair promising you will deal with it in the morning? Have you really dealt with it in the morning? Nope. It just keeps on happening and before you know it, a lot of clothes piled up as high as Mt. Everest! Before you crawl into bed at night, take some time to fold your clothes and put them away or hand them back up neatly. You will thank yourself in the morning when you wake up to a room with less clutter.
5. Throw Away Your Trash
Sounds very simple and obvious, eh? Apparently not. You would not believe how much of your clutter is actually stuff meant to be thrown away. Items such as tags, shopping bags, gift boxes, etc-toss them out to the trash bin or recycle immediately.
6. Give Every New Item a New Home
When you’re in the middle of your buyer’s remorse and contemplating on whether to return or keep the item you just bought, it just usually stays in front of your closet or anywhere it should not be until you figure things out (guilty of this!). It is easy to let your new purchases wallow into your entryway or your bathroom counter but this only creates tons of totally unnecessary clutter. What can you do? As soon as you bring a new item home, give it a proper and permanent home. Figure out where you will keep it when you are still in the process of buying it, it that way you will save yourself some clutter and you will also have to rethink your purchase.
7. Avoid Buying Too Much Storage Bins
It’s so tempting to buy a lot of storage bins not only because they are helpful when you don’t have much storage space. Before buying one, you must already know what to store in it to avoid overbuying storage bins that will just add up to your clutter and will give you an excuse to buy more things you don’t really need.
8. Spend 5 Minutes Tidying Up Every Night
Make this a challenge! Before you get ready for bed, set a timer, and see how much you can accomplish in 5 minutes. Perhaps if you hustle, you can hang up your clothes, pick up the trash, wipe down your bathroom mirror or put things away. If you can spend 10 minutes or longer to check your Facebook newsfeed, we’re sure this 5-minute challenge will be a breeze.
9. Put on Your Decluttering To-do list an Area of Your Home That Drives You Crazy
To accomplish a difficult task such as decluttering your closet or your kitchen cabinets may be a hard thing to do at first but the level of satisfaction you will have will far outweigh the amount of effort you will exert. Keep a list of the things you need to declutter (spaces that make your skin crawl just by the thought of it) and set a date within the week to declutter.
10. Tidy a Room Before You Leave it
Stowaway your beauty products after you use them, toss your papers and put your coffee mug in the sink when you’re done working on your desk, fluff the pillows on the sofa before leaving the living room, make sure that the dishes are washed. Basically, leave the room cleaner than you found it.
11. Use the “One in, One out” Rule
For every item you add to your space, get rid of something similar. If Mary Helen Rowell can live comfortably in her 90 sq ft apartment, this is because she follows this “one in, one out” rule. Got a new pair of running shoes? Donate the old one. Got a new book? Give a book to the library.
12. Clean During Commercial Breaks
It’s surprising to know how many small tasks you can accomplish when you have a couple of minutes to spare. You can put away toys during a Hulu ad, vacuum while you’re waiting for your water to boil, or fold some clothes while waiting for your Uber driver.
Of course, there may be days when you are too tired to clean or would like to have a more thorough cleaning. You can always hire a cleaning service such as Mexicleaning to help you with your home cleaning projects. Give us a call or chat with us online to know more about our services.
