Clutter refers to anything in your home that doesn’t add value or happiness to your life. By decluttering your home, you are filling your room with things you love, instead of just ‘stuff’. Many of us look at our rooms and feel they are too small, have too much stuff in them or they are too cluttered. However, by decluttering your rooms and organising your home you will feel you have more space in your home, rooms will look tidier, and you’ll feel less stressed. Investing in affordable self storage, such as Quick Self Storage can help!
That said, while many of us know the benefits of decluttering, it’s hard to know where to start or even how to start. So, we have put together three steps to help declutter your home. There is also a list of top tips for decluttering your home if you wish to jump ahead.
Set Yourself A Declutter Goal And Create A Timeline
Setting yourself the goal of decluttering your home can be hard to achieve. With no end date or timeline, you could still be planning to declutter your home in ten years’ time. The best thing to do is set yourself a plan of how and where you will start in your home. Then add specific goals and a timeline so you can approach the task in a less frustrating way. This way you’ll feel in control and every small goal met will feel like a big achievement.
- Firstly, write a list of the rooms in your home and include any clutter hot spots, like cupboards, worktops or boxes.
- Grade the clutter in each room. Mark it out of ten to confirm the amount of clutter and the effort it will take.
- You then need to tackle one room and one space at a time. Give yourself a set number of hours or days per room or space. Then include a date it needs to be decluttered by.
- Don’t be hard on yourself, you might not want to declutter your whole house in a week, so give yourself time either side of larger areas or the biggest clutter to enjoy the space and celebrate what you’ve achieved.
A realistic goal is to work through one room each weekend, if you can get bits done during the evenings then you have more free time at the weekend. Try to stick to your goals but be fair on yourself too.
A Sorting System For Decluttering
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It’s all well and good decluttering your home, but what will you do with the clutter? If you’re just moving it from one room to another, then this could be a pointless and never-ending task. Instead, you need to plan out a sorting system. A popular method is the three-pile system. You have three piles, one is things to keep, one is things to get rid of and one is for storage. This system forces you to make decisions as you go along and helps avoid you making a bigger mess than you started with.
Instead of piles, you may choose for these to boxes or bags. This will make things easier when it comes to tidying up the three piles of items:
Decluttering Keep Pile
This is the pile of things you want to keep. These need to be things that bring value, joy or happiness to your life. Things you regularly use or admire for example. As you finish the decluttering of each space put these items in their designated spaces, whether that’s on a shelf or in a drawer for example.
Decluttering Get Rid Pile
This is a box of things you don’t need, use or even like. It could be gifts that were given to you years gone by that you never really liked, things that have become outdated or no longer suit the style of your home. It could just be items that you no longer use or need. This pile is where really powerful decluttering happens, with a lot of stress being gotten rid of too.
Declutter Put Into Storage Pile
This pile is similar to the keep pile, but it’s for things you don’t need to keep in your home. This could be seasonal items such as Christmas decorations that are taking up lots of space. It could also be sentimental items and family heirlooms that you don’t want to get rid of, but they also take up too much room in your home.
You may choose to have a rubbish bag to hand too. This is for the items that you want to get rid of, but they need to go in the bin as opposed to other places. We talk about this more in step three of decluttering your home.
The Get Rid Pile
Once you have put all your ‘keep pile’ back in their places and your storage pile has been put in affordable storage in Peterborough or Darlington, you’ll be left with the ‘Get Rid Pile’. This pile will need to split into more piles, as we explain below. Make sure you are prepared to split this pile by having boxes and bags to hand.
Car Boot Sale
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Look out for local car boot sales in Peterborough where you could sell your belongings. It will only take up a morning one weekend, but you could leave with a tidy profit. The promise of extra pennies can also be enough to tempt the kids to declutter their own rooms too – saving you the job!
Donate To Charity
Giving your old belongings to people that need them will fill you with a real sense of peace of mind. You can take your old belongings to the charity or some shops will collect the belongings from your property to sell in their charity shop. If you have large pieces of furniture you want to get rid of during the declutter, you could donate them to Care Zone in Peterborough who will pass it on to those in need.
Sell Online
There are lots of online marketing places where you can sell your clutter. Places like Ebay or the Facebook marketplace are great options. Just remember that you will need to send the items or be available for people to come round and collect the items. This is when donating your goods or attending a car boot sale can be easier and less time-consuming.
Top Tips For Decluttering Your Home
Whether you are decluttering your home as a way of simplifying your life, or because you are downsizing your home, it is a big job that will take a lot of time and effort. Like we said in step one, set yourself a plan and attack one room at a time. It is important that you are thorough in each room too. You need to fully declutter one room or area before moving on to the next. Here are some tips to make the decluttering process easier.
- Empty the draws. Take everything out of the drawers and cupboards. Check best before dates and get rid of items you don’t use too. Clutter isn’t just in the areas you can see. By clearing out your drawers and cupboards you will have more storage space so clutter can’t build up on your sides and worktops.
- Check the books you have on your shelves. If it’s book that you started and didn’t finish, do you need to keep it? If you finished a book will you read it again? Just because you have a huge bookshelf, it doesn’t mean it needs to be full. Space on your bookshelves could be used for ornaments or photos for example.
- Pens! Every time you find a pen, check it works. We often keep pens, try to use it, find it doesn’t work and leave it on the side as we grab another one. Instead, go through your pens and check they all work. The dried-out pens or ones that are scratchy to write with need to be chucked.
- The wardrobes are often the trickiest area to declutter. Look at your clothes and think about when you last wore them. If you can’t remember, then get rid. Try the clothes on – if they have holes in, don’t fit, need repairing or just don’t look right then stick them in the ‘get rid’ pile.
- Check the backs of doors. We all have hooks somewhere. This could be the backs of the door, in the entrance hall or in the cupboard under the stairs. Take everything off the hooks and go through it. Do the summer hats need to be kept out with winter coats, hats and scarves? Keep these spaces seasonal and store out of season clothes elsewhere so you are presented with less clutter when you leave and get back to your home.
- Tools and Utensils. This goes for the kitchen and the shed or garage. While you may have an impressive set of tools or utensils, how often do you actually use them? Do you need the 10 cake tins you have or the 15 different electric drills? If they are tools or utensils that you might need again, one day, then why not pop them in affordable storage in Peterborough until you do need them?
Affordable storage is your friend when it comes to decluttering your home. Quick Self Storage has plenty of history in helping people with temporary personal storage, decluttering and much more across our locations:
If you have large items in your home or lots of things cluttering up space in your home that you’re just not ready to get rid of, then why not put them in storage? Then a few months or a year later you can come back to them again and decide if you want them in your home, are ready to get rid of them, or if you’d like to keep them in storage for a later date.
So, split into three categories when decluttering. Put things into storage that you are unsure of, or definitely want to keep, get rid of the other things. Then, go back and review what’s in storage later. Remove the things from your storage unit that you don’t really want, and feel more at ease, decluttered and freer as a result. Simple ways to declutter your home!