The thought of decluttering your home can be daunting. We tend to collect a lot of items, many of which we don’t need or aren’t useful to us anymore. Nonetheless, your New Year’s resolution should be to declutter your home. Decluttering is a great way the shed the burden of a messy home and to get back to the basics. For many, it’s a fresh start.
Let’s take a look at the best decluttering ideas and what you should do with those items that are too hard to part with.
Get in the Right Mindset to Declutter
Decluttering can often feel like you’re trashing your possessions or that you’re throwing money away on things you’ve bought. It’s important to know that you don’t need to throw things in the trash. You can organize them or donate them to someone less fortunate. Donating can be a positive mental perspective on decluttering.
You need to have the mindset that you are cleansing yourself and your home of all of the “stuff”. You owe it to yourself to not be stressed out about cleaning and organizing. You owe it to your home to make it a place you enjoy and a space you feel most comfortable in.
Start Small
We tend to take on more than we can handle until we burn out and end up quitting. This is the way most New Year’s resolutions go. You feel like you’re not seeing the results because the bar was set too high to begin with.
Declutter a small space to get yourself started. For example, begin with your bathrooms, linen and coat closets, and laundry room. These small spaces will be easier to manage and will give you confidence to keep going after you’ve experienced a few successes.
If that’s too much for you, you could also start by selecting a few small spaces. For example, the section of your counter that’s often a wasteland of junk mail and documents, or that corner of the garage that hasn’t seen the light of day in a while.
Whatever you choose, set yourself up for small wins and work your way up. Having a positive mental attitude will be your key to long-term success and maintaining your decluttered space.
Scale Up
Once you’ve gotten the process down and are more comfortable with your decluttering effort, take on a bigger task like going through your clothes or a spare bedroom. A bigger space will take some time, sometimes 1-2 months to fully declutter. Make sure you plan for several stopping points during the project.
If there are sentimental items or more time-consuming items to go through, set them aside and go through them last. This will help keep you focused and on track. We’ll discuss what you should do with those items a bit later.
Compartmentalize
When reorganizing you should organize items in compartments, storage containers, and shelves. Compartmentalization helps to create a spot where everything should go. By giving everything a home, it makes it easier to get things put away and will help you maintain your brand-new decluttered lifestyle.
In drawers, utilize small 5 sided boxes to create spots for items to sit. For example, you might have a few boxes of various sizes to organize your toiletries in your bathroom or cooking utensils in your kitchen drawers.
On shelves and in closets, use clear storage containers to organize larger items. The clear bin should be carefully packed so you can easily identify what’s inside. Utilize labels and inventory lists for larger bins.
Share Your Progress
Keep yourself accountable by sharing your progress. You might share before and after photos on Facebook or chat with a friend or family member over email.
If you don’t have someone to share your progress with, try creating an Instagram account to to share your story and tag your posts with common hashtags such as #declutter or #declutterchallenge
Whatever you do, remember that it’s important to hold yourself accountable. It’s easy to lose sight of your goals when no one is watching.
Involve the Whole Family
Be sure to get your whole family on board with your decluttering goals. It’s important to have a team who’s helping and not hindering your progress.
If you have small children, be sure to include them in the process. Children mimic our actions and it’s important to show them good habits, even if they aren’t perfect at it yet. Make it fun for them and no other incentives will be needed.
Donate Unwanted Items
Donate and recycle as much as possible. Most communities have donation centers that help those who are underprivileged. If you have trash, be sure to recycle what you can. It’s especially important to properly dispose of electronics and chemicals properly, so do a google search on how to properly dispose of these items in your area.
If you end up with some items that you’d rather sell, take a look at Facebook Marketplace as a way to easily find buyers willing to pay cash for your items. Just remember, just because you value the item, doesn’t mean others will. Be willing to take less cash in order to obtain your goal of decluttering.
Have a mountain of clutter? Consider a garage sale. Be sure to post your garage sale on local forums like Craigslist, Facebook Groups, and community message boards.
Store the Rest in Self Storage
By now, your home should be decluttered and you’ll be left with a few categories of items. Those will range from daily necessities to seasonal and sentimental belongings. For items that might get used less; are seasonal; or are sentimental, it’s important to keep them out of the way until they’re needed.
Self storage is a great way to store those items but the expense can turn a lot of people away. That’s why it’s important to choose affordable storage space from Bargain Storage. Every one of our facilities is modern, secure, and well-maintained. Our goal is to create the best space to store your excess belongings.
If you’re looking for affordable self storage in your area, check out our many self storage locations here.