I was drowning in clutter. It made me mad. Miserable. And ashamed of my own home.
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I spent hours – whole weekends – trying different decluttering approaches, including Marie Kondo, but they didn’t help.
And the clutter kept coming in.
UNTIL I discovered simple methods for letting go of all the stuff I am happier without.
I still don’t have a squeaky clean home, all minimalist and pristine. Far from it. To be honest, I rather like life a little bit messy.
BUT I have let go of hundreds of bags of stuff:
- In just a few minutes everyday.
- Without ANY big stop-my-life for the weekend declutter sessions.
My declutter journey has created a space I can organize and clean and look after simply. A space I actually enjoy Seasonality core 2 6 equals. living in again.
Duplicate file finder 6 5 – find duplicate files. And it has eased my deep down anxiety and explosive anger. I am simply happier with a simpler, less cluttered life.
If you struggle with clutter I hope I can help.
I am sharing here the easy ideas and tips that help me declutter and organise, including:
- Simple declutter methods – alternatives to Marie Kondo – you can follow when you’re busy and tired and overwhelmed
- Declutter checklists
- Declutter challenges for each room in your home including kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms and closets
- Step by step guides to clutter hot spots
- My approach to selling clutter
- Practical ideas to keep clutter out
- Motivational support to get you started and help you succeed
These resources will hold your hand through each step of your declutter journey AND they are all completely FREE.
So do save this page for easy reference.
I’ll briefly introduce each declutter tool below. For the quick index whiz down to section 8.
KonMari Didn’t Work For Me
I tried the KonMari method to decluttering because so many people swear by it, but it did NOT work for me. My 3 big problems were it:
- Was overwhelming – starting was hard, keeping going even harder
- Made an enormous mess
- Demanded time I didn’t have
Marie Kondo didn’t help me either with:
- The rest of the family’s clutter
- Selling stuff to help with family finances
- Letting stuff go responsibly, so it didn’t all end up in the tip polluting the planet
AND it did not make me happier. Yanking everything out actually made me more anxious. And that made it harder to let stuff go.
Luckily, I discovered two simple methods that addressed all these challenges and made me happier in the process. They are called:
- Just 10 Things
- and The Power Purge
Just 10 Things
I love the Just 10 Things declutter method.
It takes only 5 or 10 minutes a day, but helped me clear thousands of items of clutter.
It’s amazingly powerful because it turns decluttering into a simple habit we can succeed at even when we’re exhausted.
AND it makes us feel happier every single day.
Read this simple guide to get started.
The Power Purge
I top up Just 10 Things with the Power Purge method. Especially, when I am fuming and furious with my family.
It channels all our angry energy BUT doesn’t create a big old mess on the floor.
We all have our own variety of crazy clutter. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff I hoarded.
But these handy checklists open our eyes to lots of the obvious clutter we are ignoring:
Use these checklists with either of my declutter methods or with one of your own.
And you can get the whole family involved by turning them into bingo sheets – whoever says goodbye to the most, wins.
For more hands on support, use these daily declutter challenges to turn decluttering into a simple daily habit, you can follow as easily as cleaning your teeth.
Each day’s challenge focuses on just one area. This stops us from being overwhelmed by all the possible stuff we could let go.
And helps us get down to true essentials.
Every day we let stuff go, it becomes easier the next day to let go of even more. Tab launcher 2 8 1.
Clutter gets everywhere, doesn’t it? And that’s one of the horrible things about it.
But we also have hotspots don’t we? Huge clutter monsters we are scared to take on.
So I have step by step guides to tackle biggies:
- Kitchen – an easy 30 day challenge
- Garages – also works for basement & attics
- Paper – all those piles we daren’t touch
- Boxes – of forgotten stuff
PLUS help with cleaning stuff & bathrooms.
We all know about selling on eBay but most clutter is low value and not worth the effort.
The thing is, it all adds up. 100 things worth £10 or $10 is a £1,000 or $ we can use to pay off debt or start an emergency fund.
And with Just 10 Things we can easily let go of thousands of small value items that could help our families financially.
So I developed this simple trick for selling clutter on Facebook with very little effort.
It won’t sell everything but it will help.
Clutter sneaks into our homes every day in so many different ways, doesn’t it?
From the grocery store. In the mail box. In kids’ bags. And partner’s cases. Off Amazon. After shopping binges. And THEN there’s Christmas. And birthdays. And Easter. And Valentines. And Halloween. And Mothers’ Day.
An endless trail of new stuff, we don’t have time to enjoy or space to look after in.
To help you shut the door on clutter I have got two clutter free gift guides:
I have also got some practical simple tips to help keep every day clutter out.
But we also need to change our mindset about stuff, and I found these four simple ways to enjoy living with less particularly powerful
We all know we want to declutter, don’t we? And that’s why Marie Kondo is such a hit. She seems to offer us a clear path to letting stuff go.
But I know so many people who are desperate to declutter and bought the book, then never got started. Or managed one drawer.
Because it needed hours of free time and created – initially – more chaos. Yanking everything out – or even the thought of it – made them crumple. It was too much for them.
That’s why I am passionate about sharing a simple alternative for those of us for whom Marie Kondo just didn’t work.
We truly can reclaim our homes with a gentle decluttering rhythm that lets a little go daily.
Declutter Rhythm
I found that this habit of daily decluttering was amazing motivation in it’s own right; every day we can feel the calm of letting things go:
And the daily declutter prompts helped build the habit, but I also found it motivating to truly acknowledge the pain clutter causes me and focus on the key benefits of letting clutter go:
These have helped me clear hundreds of bags and boxes of stuff I am happier without.
But like most people I did cling on initially to sentimental things from loved ones.
Sentimental Clutter
They were tucked away in boxes, so no they didn’t bring joy but recognising that didn’t make it any easier to let go.
What helped much more was to weave a wealth of other ways of remembering into my daily life. To help you with this I’ve shared:
My final secret for successful decluttering was everyday support from friends who:
- Suffered like me with a chaotic home
- And truly wanted to reclaim their life
BUT felt life was far too short to spend endless weekends yanking everything out, making a mess and interrogating every item we own.
Every Day Support
Knowing I wasn’t alone with my clutter truly helped. Friends inspired me to keep going even when life was hectic and to believe in my vision of a simpler more joyful life.
So please do:
- Join me on Facebook where I share easy inspirational ways to enjoy living with less
- Sign up for my free newsletter to receive more easy decluttering tips
Hopefully, you will find here all the resources you need to reclaim your home. Do save this planner so you can dip in when you need to.
And please share with friends.
And spread the word that Marie Kondo may be wonderful for some, but there is another way. And it’s a whole lot simpler.
Simple Declutter Methods
Declutter Lists
Daily Declutter Challenges
Declutter Hotspot Guides
Sell Clutter Easily
Keep Clutter Out
Motivational Support
Original image sources : rawpixel.com
If you are wondering why I’m writing a post on decluttering your home, let me clarify: this blog has not gone Martha Stewart! As unintuitive as it might be, our homes play a very important role in our personal growth. Why is that the case?
In my post on creating an inspirational room, I mentioned 3 reasons why it’s important to put attention into how your room looks/feels:
Advertisement- You spend a large amount of your time there
- It’s where a lot of your thinking and decision making take place
- It has personal, emotional significance.
These 3 reasons ladder up to 1 thing — the effect your environment has on you. Your environment deeply affects who you are, and vice versa. Who you are as a person shows in terms of how your room/home looks. How your room/home looks like affects the way you think and feel. Both reinforce each other. Change one thing, and the other will change as a result.
For that reason, decluttering your home is one of the first steps to creating an organized, positive life. If you want to be organized, it’s hard to think/feel organized if your home isn’t tidy to begin with. Imagine waking up to an untidy, cluttered place every day. Or coming home after a long-day to a messy place. How will you feel? Chances are, it’s not going to make you feel good. You are probably going to feel a little bothered by the clutter. Even if you do not consciously pay attention or feel bothered by it, on a subconscious level, your mind is taking in stimuli of clutter. These subsequently affect how you think and feel.
Decluttering your home also means a) purging of junk which you don’t need, b) stuff is kept in its rightful places, and c) you have an easier time finding things you need. This goes a long way in helping you be more productive!
Decluttering My Home
There used to be a lot of clutter in my house. It was normal for my living room to have magazines and newspapers strewn everywhere. The toilets had a lot of random haircare/skincare products, many of which were half-used and not touched for a while. The storeroom had a lot of junk. My room had stuff from way back when I was in primary school. My wardrobe was over-packed with old and new clothes alike.
At first, I didn’t pay much heed to decluttering because the effects of my occasional decluttering sessions never lasted. After each session, the clutter would just pile back on. I thought it was a waste of time to keep doing it again and again.
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Yet after a while, I realized my environment would affect my thoughts. Because it was often untidy, I would feel disorganized and mentally cluttered. What’s more, I felt subconsciously repelled by my own home — I wasn’t keen in inviting friends over. After all, it wasn’t exactly the homey environment I envisioned.
So last year after I quit my job, I took the opportunity to turn the place around and tidy everything up. My parents probably felt bizarre when I suddenly turned stepford wife for that one week! ? At the end of it, I felt really good from the overhaul. Besides being just a physical decluttering process, it was also a form of mental, emotional and spiritual decluttering too.
AdvertisementHow to Declutter Your Home
Here are my 8 recommended steps on how to declutter your home. These steps will work perfectly for any place such as your office too.
1. Plan it in your schedule
Clutter clearing can easily take up hours if you have a huge amount of clutter to clear out. My massive decluttering took me a whole week! Set aside time in your schedule and segment the task into different parts. For example, set aside X amount of hours for your wardrobe, followed by your bedroom, then your storage room, and so on.
When I decluttered my house, I broke it down into phases: first with my room (it was already in shape after the big revamp in 2007, so it was more about upkeeping it), the living room, followed by the kitchen, then my parents’ room, the washrooms, and finally the storage room. This made the whole task much more manageable.
2. Enroll the help of someone
Many hands make light work. If it’s possible, get a family member or a friend to help out. This can be a very tedious task, especially if you have not been doing it for very long. There were times when I had to shift the furniture around and it was much easier with my Dad and brother around to help out. Besides that, it’s much more fun to be doing it with others than alone.
3. Start with a small area
If there’s too many things to clear and you are not sure where to begin, start off with a manageable spot. If it’s your room, start off with your table. If it’s your wardrobe, pick one of the smaller compartments. Before you know it, you will be done with the area and you are ready to the next.
4. Let go of things you have no use for
In the past, my default action was to keep something just in case I needed it in the future. Over the years, it just resulted in a huge pile of junk. Not only that, I never had an occasion where I needed that thing. Now, my principle is to ask – ‘Am I going to need this in the foreseeable future?’ If the answer is no, I’ll throw it away. A lot of clutter comes from keeping things that you think you’ll use, but never do in the end.
Whenever I declutter, I will use a huge garbage bag to dump everything I don’t want. It makes it much simpler to discard stuff. You might want to try it for yourself too.
5. Finish clearing first, then organize
Some people try to clear clutter AND organize at the same time. Personally, I feel that this isn’t very effective. I prefer is to finish clearing the clutter first (within the area), then organize the stuff inside. It’s much easier to arrange when you know what are all the things that need to be sorted. Not only that, it can be both mentally and physically disruptive to change back and forth between ‘clearing’ and ‘organizing’.
Declutter 2 5 X 76
Advertisement6. Make use of effective furniture and tools
Filing systems, storage boxes, magazine files and multi-compartment wardrobes are just some of the many great tools to help you organize your stuff. Ikea is well-known for having many furniture and accessories which streamlines organization. I particularly am a big fan of storage boxes – they provide an easy avenue to pack things in a compact manner, and the boxes fit perfectly under the bed.
7. Designate spots for common items
I have fixed spots around my room to put commonly accessed items – such as my mobile phone, necklaces, accessories, bags and so on. These items are placed in their respective spots every time, which eliminates the need to go into a mad search for them before I leave the house each time.
8. Schedule a regular clutter-clearing session
After you finish clearing out the clutter, schedule a quick 30 minutes session every week as a form of maintenance. your home and weed out whatever clutter has gathered in the past week. With continuous maintenance, you will get to reap the benefits of a clutter-free home.
Once you are done clearing your clutter, you might want to move to creating an inspirational home environment, which you can read in my guide on how to create an inspiring room. ?
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