South of Metro | Tips and Steps to Declutter Your Home | There are numerous benefits to embracing minimalism. In addition to east clean and soothing visual appeal, it also leaves quite a lot of space and freedom to lead a life of true intention instead of having investing hours on cleaning your home.
The first step to a minimalistic lifestyle is decluttering your home but this is a project that takes planning, effort, time and perseverance. The key to the entire process lies in devising a plan that will keep you motivated throughout the whole process and here are the crucial steps to take.
Make a plan
Decluttering is a serious project with the aim to produce a healthier state of mind for you and a healthier place to live, so having a clear vision and a solid plan is crucial. Ask yourself what it is you want to achieve and work towards those goals so you don’t get side-tracked.
Be guided by the proven benefits of living in a clutter-free home: you’ll have more energy and time to do the things you love, you’ll have a more spacious and peaceful home, more financial freedom, more mental clarity and focus without the clutter to distract you, you’ll feel more satisfied with how easy it is to maintain a decluttered home and you’ll be reducing your carbon footprint by choosing to buy and own less.
A decluttering plan should include the preferred method of decluttering – room by room, by category, all alike items together – and a schedule and timeline. One more important part is deciding on how you will deal with the throw-away pile. There are commonly three categories of excess stuff – donate, sell and throw away. Once you have donated and sold the designated stuff, you need to figure out how to get rid of the trash and the best option is hiring rubbish removal experts to help you. They will come up with the most appropriate way to remove your unwanted rubbish without doing any harm to the environment.
Quick and easy decluttering tips
The best way to start and get momentum is to take a laundry basket and sweep through your home looking for anything that isn’t a favourite anymore and has been sitting unused for a while. Before you dive into the highest priority area, some experts claim it’s better to start where it seems easier, such as a bathroom. They’re usually the smallest rooms in the house and rarely have any sentimental items.
Tackling decluttering and cleaning of an easy space will give you more satisfaction and confidence to proceed with clearing out the rest of your home. However, if you’re not easily scared, you can face your highest priority first. This can free lots of space initially and get you energized so the rest of the house will be a breeze! You’ll also get additional motivation when you quickly see the benefits of decluttering.
Once you have cleared out the key areas and surfaces in your home, make a firm decision to keep them like that, such as the kitchen countertops, the dining table, home office desk, kids’ workstations, coffee tables, nightstands, side tables and bathroom counters. Clearing out these conspicuous spaces will immediately reduce the obvious clutter and encourage you to keep up the good work.
When you’ve finished decluttering your home, step back and assess the situation. See if you have achieved the goals you’ve set in the beginning. Even if you haven’t at this point, don’t feel discouraged if there’s still work left. You’ll get better at it as time goes by and each thing you tackle next will be easier to resolve. Also, once you’ve experienced the benefits of clutter-free home, you’ll be more inspired and motivated to keep it up.
Final tips
There are a few final things you can do to aid the entire process of decluttering long-term: always have a donation box ready so whenever there’s something you don’t use or love anymore, put it in the box rather than storing it for later.
Make it a habit to do some decluttering every day for at least 10 minutes – these short sessions will add up to a great end result.
Finally, be watchful of how much you buy and what comes into your home. Stop the incoming surge of stuff and be a more conscious and intentional shopper. You’ll be preventing your home from accumulating stuff again and helping the environment at the same time by consuming less. It’s a win-win situation!
