Clutter-Free and How to Get There

Anytime is the perfect time to declutter your home, whether you choose to declutter everything, or just one or two messy spaces. It isn’t just about cleaning, but about deciding what to get rid of or donate, and finding a better way to control what you keep. Clutter-free is possible, and here’s how to get there.

Do it Before Spring Cleaning

Decluttering is a project that can happen anytime of year, especially if you haven’t done it for a while.  But, as a winter weather resident, I set a winter goal of decluttering before spring cleaning. As I look around our home, I see areas that need to be tackled but good! Closets have accumulated not only our items, but a conglomeration of “stuff” from my parents and in-laws as they moved into apartments or passed way.  Our unused basement space has collected “stuff” for years, and I know there are things down there that haven’t been touched since we moved into our home 20 years ago! The funny thing is, I know we’re not alone in having a cluttered kingdom.

Targeting spring cleaning season as a declutter goal is ideal. It’s a heck of a lot easier to have to move and clean less, and with any luck I’ll find even more to bestow upon someone else! After a long winter with our home closed up to the cold, spring is time to throw open the windows and dig into deep cleaning, re-organizing, throwing old things away, and giving an overhaul to how we tidy up. When I declutter first, it makes it much easier to tackle the deep cleaning tasks.

Reduce Your Stress

I don’t know about you, but when I have a lot of messes around, or just a lot of “stuff”, my stress level increases. The worst feeling in the world is knowing you have something, but simply can’t lay your hands on it.  Life is chaotic enough without feeling like you’re surrounded by chaos at home, even if things are in somewhat of an organized place.  I’ve found the best way to start clearing my mind is by first clearing my surrounding clutter. And sometimes, when I’m really stressed I even find decluttering – sorting, tossing, donating and re-organizing – is just what the doctor ordered to calm my mind.

Once decluttered and organized, it’s so much easier to keep our home clean. I don’t have to move everything before I clean, there’s less to clean, and our already spacious closets, cabinets and drawers have so much more room there’s no excuse but to have have a tidier home.

Getting Started

As I think about decluttering, choosing what to keep, move, donate, or throw away, I sometimes feel overwhelmed with how much there is to do. What am I going to do with all this stuff? I “can’t” just throw it away! Donate….no one will want this stuff! Good Lord…how many trips up the stairs will I need to make? What if I get rid of it and then realize I really need or want it?

If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’ve asked yourself some of these very same questions. That’s why decluttering is so often put on the back burner for another day. I equate it to pulling a thread on a blouse…one pull and the whole sleeve falls off! It’s like that with decluttering. You start with one bedroom, and it’s not just the closet but everything else in the room, especially if it’s a spare or unused room. Those are beautiful clutter catchers, aren’t they?!  Before you know it, an entire day or weekend is gone. Here are some helpful tips to get you started:

Tip #1 – You don’t need to do the entire house in one day!

In fact, you don’t even need to do an entire room in a day! Pick one room and break it down into pieces. For example, in a spare and unused bedroom, declutter the closet on Monday. Pull everything out and lay it on the bed. Sort through it and make three piles – keep, toss, donate. Take some time on questionable items so you don’t have regrets afterward. Remember, your goal is to finish the closet in a day, or a morning, or 2 hours. Keep moving.

When you’re done sorting, only return to the closet what you absolutely want to keep. Put things you use frequently within arms reach, and things you’re storing on higher shelves out of the way. Then, bring your toss pile to the garbage and haul your donate pile to your local charity. Do it…don’t wait. And do NOT…repeat…do NOT change your mind and pull something back out! Remember…the object is to get rid of unused and unwanted so you can become clutter-free!

Next, pick another day and move on to the dresser or under the bed (if you use that for storage), the bedside table, or the piles on the floor (I’m mentioning for a friend!). Pick one and get it done. Repeat the same procedure until you’re 100% done and 100% satisfied with the room. As you’re working your way through the room, be thinking about how you might rearrange the room to ensure it stays tidy and uncluttered. You might find some opportunity there, too!

Tip #2 – Allow yourself time

Allow yourself the time to do this one step at a time so that you don’t become overwhelmed. Heck, if you need to it one drawer at a time that’s fine. When it comes to decluttering my kitchen pantry, I literally take it one shelf at a time. It’s large, and I have an incredible amount of stuff packed into it. So much so, that I stash some kitchen stuff in a hallway linen closet! I think you can guess the first place I start is my kitchen pantry. If I can free up space there, I can bring all my kitchen stuff into the kitchen where it belongs, and open up storage space elsewhere.

Tip #3 – Ask for help

I had a conversation with a girlfriend recently about decluttering. It turned into a conversation about whose work area is worse when it comes to clutter and disorganization! Then, another friend and I texted each other pictures of our kitchen nightmare called a spice shelf…nope, not a rack…an entire shelf of spicy chaos. While in both cases we could only laugh at each other, those conversations confirmed I’m not alone. One friend suggested we help each other, spend an afternoon in each other’s spaces to make sure we stay on task in our declutter trek. I just might take her up on that!

When my parents prepared to downsize from our family home to an apartment, they worked hand in hand going through everything in the house. They asked us kids for help as they needed. We were only too happy to oblige, knowing it would make their ultimate move easier.

If you’re in a physical bind and can’t lift or haul, or perhaps are disabled, there are a number of companies who for a fee will help you clean out. You simply point, and they do all the work. If you have furniture items that you’d like to donate, call your local thrift stores. Some have pickup routes. Just be sure to ask if you need to have everything outside on your stoop or in your garage for pickup, or if they’ll come into your home and haul out. If that’s not available, local moving companies are usually able to move it out and haul it wherever you want, for a fee.

Tip #4 Decluttering with childeren

If you’re decluttering while you have children at home, enlist their help. Ask them to choose what’s most special to them and decide where they would like to keep it. Start a storage tote with their name on it. Then, have them review the tote at least once a year to decide what they’d like to do with the items. I’ve heard terrific stories about children who declutter, and donate toys to shelters for others who have little. What an awesome learning opportunity for children!

Tip #5 – Settle the Fight

How many of you have a spouse that you know will “never” let you throw anything out? My dad was one of those, but his “treasure” was nuts and bolts and piddly little stuff. And yup…I married one of those, too. I’m of the “hard cut” school of declutter…if I haven’t touched it in a season or a year, out it goes. As for clothing, if I didn’t wear it over the winter, it’s gone in the spring. My husband…not so much. So, how do you come to agreement on what to keep and what to toss?

Plan a time that you both will tackle a specific area at the same time. Set up your keep, toss, donate piles. First, each of you sort your own items in that area as toss, donate or set aside. When it comes to household items, if you can’t seem to agree put a sticky note on it. Then, make a promise to revisit it together in a month, or three months.  Then revisit it. Don’t remove the sticky note, as that will become your “revisit” reminder.

The sticky note method is great if you need help with hauling your things to garbage or charity, too. Head to the “everything is a buck” store and pick up two colors of sticky notes. Use one color to mark toss items, charity with another. Then when your friends or family come to help they’ll clearly know what goes where.

Tip #5 – Save the Hardest for Last

The worst thing to do is start with the hardest area, whether it’s the most cluttered or the most memory-filled. Not only will it take the longest, but can quickly overwhelm and shut the process right down. I have two of those areas – a spare bedroom and the basement. In theory, our spare bedroom is our guest room. But it’s become the repository for things that were my parents’ or my in-laws’ that had high sentimental value to them. And, I use this room to store decor while the Christmas decorations are out! Talk about a mess and it drives me NUTS!

My mother-in-law kept amazingly detailed photo albums…we have them all (20+), even though they are all from times long, long ago and contain people we don’t know. I was given the photo box my parents kept for decades that includes my first year baby book from 1963, the birth cards my parents received when I was born, and the photo album from our trip to California in 1969 that holds our train tickets, Disneyland tickets, a matchbook, and the little paper cover with the bear on it that was over the juice glass at our Sleepy Bear motel!  My father’s military memorabilia from World War II – precious and priceless, needs a better storage and preservation option. The sewing patterns I used years ago (that’s an obvious toss for me), old CDs we don’t listen to, copies of newspapers from when the Green Bay Packers were in the Super Bowl (1996 and 2010)…and the list goes on.

So much in that room holds so many memories, but right now it’s just clutter. As I’ve worked my way through a few other areas in our home, I keep coming back and eye-balling that spare room. I’ve postponed long enough, it’s time to dig in. Of course, if I get this done…I’ll have to start on the basement…UGGGHHHH!

Tip #6 – You Don’t Need it All

Realize you don’t NEED it all, at least not physically. Consider a service that puts old photos or video to DVD. That’s a great option for us with so many photos, IF we decide they’re photos we WANT to keep. That china tea set that’s never used? Keep one cup and saucer and display it on a shelf, or use it to hold your rings. Plant tiny succulents in the rest of the cups, silicone the matching saucers to the bottom, and give them as hostess gifts when you visit friends. The crystal vase you got for a wedding gift and never used? How about a professional floral arranger making a beautiful silk arrangement to go with your today decor, and use it. Or better yet, donate it for a charity auction. The high school basketball jersey, or the keepsake autographed baseball cards? Those make terrific shadowboxes for a den or family room. Better yet, take digital photos of them, and if they could raise some charitable dollars, donate them for auction.

Tip #7 – Preserving the memories

It’s not the item that’s so precious. It’s the memory surrounding the item. Tell the story; preserve the memory. Ask family or friends to help make narrated videos of the items you no longer want or need, or can’t move with. In the video, can tell the story of the carved bear that’s sat on the hearth for decades, or how you came about that fur coat. Those stories are what your family will hold precious, especially when they’re told in your voice. And, once the story is captured the items are just “things”.

So there you have it. One day at a time, one drawer at a time, and we’re on our way to being clutter-free. It’s a big project, my friends, and one I do dread. But it’s necessary. I’ve been through having to clean out two full houses when elderly relatives passed away. I just can’t put my daughter through that!

Have a tip for controlling the clutter? I’d love to hear about it. Share below!