Declutter Your Home Today!
The primary thing to remember is looking at the entire house or room alone is too much emotion to deal with. The question of where to start is overwhelming and causes you to give up before you even start. It’s better to look at your situation in smaller increments. First of all, remember the reason why you’re home is cluttered. Most likely it’s because you don’t have time to put your things where they belong. Organizing your entire home should not be done in one day. Rome was not built in a day so neither was your mess!
Some rooms I have done in sections and others I have done by time. Here’s what I mean. When I started with my study, I did that in sections. There was way too much paperwork, books, pictures, computers, and everything else we threw in there that didn’t have a place. This was our catch all room so you can only imagine the mess I started with. Most rooms have 4 walls and a floor. If your floor is decluttered you’re already off to a good start. However; if you have a tough time walking in the room because of your “stuff” then this is where I would start first. I took everything off the floor that I could. If it were papers, I put them on the desk in the study or whatever was close by. If I could easily identify it as trash, I threw it away. I did not stop to take time to read anything. Don’t get distracted by the details. I had remote control cars, toys, and even a broom in there. I couldn’t sweep because of the mess but everything was put up onto something off of the floor. Again, make this happen very quickly. Immediately you have a sense of accomplishment because you can actually walk in the room now! Sweep or vacuum the floor then you’re done for the day. This should take about 30 minutes at the most. Remember to do it quickly.
When you’re done with the floor, make a plan to clean sections of the room one section per day and not all in the same day. In my example, my desk was against 2 walls so I picked one section of my desk and planned that for the next day, then the other portion of my desk for another day. Next to that was a book shelf which I left alone. Bookshelves are for detail cleaning and should be done when you’re ready for that step. On another wall, I have totes of “stuff” that was a section as well. Once you’ve identified your sections, start with your plan of attack. Be sure that your section is realistic. If it’s only a 4′ section but piled high with stuff, you might define your section to be less than 4′. The point here is to be realistic. Dealing with a lot of paperwork can be difficult but do not plan to organize and file these things. Make a stack for filing. Don’t look at it, don’t read it, and don’t go down memory lane with pictures. Just make a stack. You can knock out each of your sections in about 30 minutes or less this way. When you’re done again, you’ll see the results immediately. The goal is to make the surface clean and a visible change. Put your paperwork for filing in a box or filing cabinet.
Each room, if divided into 5 sections could be done in 5 days for less than 2.5 hours total time. Not bad. The feeling of accomplishment that you have when you’re done is amazing.
Once your entire house has been decluttered quickly, then you can start on the items like sorting through your papers and creating organized files. This is where I use my time management well. I allow 30 minutes a day or less. I grab a section of papers and go through them and sort them into files that make sense to me. Everyone has their own idea of what categories to use so I’m not going to repeat them. The bottom line is this, you will use what works for you. Following someone else’s categories might set you up for failure. If you have receipts for car parts or maintenance on your car, you might create a simple file with the label “Car”. You might do one for “Car Maintenance” and one for “Car Part Purchases”. This is all how you want to do it. Just don’t over complicate it or you’ll get burned out really quick. Set your timer! When it goes off, you stop. Do not keep going! If you do, you won’t ever want to come back.
When you’re finished you’re going to want people to see what you’ve accomplished so you’ll invite more people over and enjoy your life. When you come home you just smile because it looks amazing! You will have so much more peace within and the amount of stress goes away.
For information on how to keep your home decluttered, see my other articles.
