The idea of living a more simple, straight forward life, with less stuff and clutter sounds attractive to many, but often, they begin to feel overwhelmed, anxious, and defeated around the idea of owning less and where to start the decluttering process.

Decluttering your home and your life, doesn’t need to be as painful and as difficult as some make it out to be. Once you know how and you get the process started, it can be so simple and refreshing!

The Benefits of Decluttering Your Life

There are many benefits to owning fewer things. Here are a few of the tops ones…

Less to clean

Cleaning is already enough of a chore during your free time, so why make it harder on yourself by adding lots of things you have to clean around. Especially if they are things you have zero emotional attachment to, or worse, don’t even care about or are there…just because!

Less to organise

Finding the things you do want and use suddenly become so much easier. Things don’t just disappear into the abyss of clutter anymore. You can actually move around your home without knocking things over and enjoy the space as it was intended.

Less stress

Looking around at the clutter you have managed to build up over the years can be so nauseating, stressful even. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to look around and see a home you love, clutter free.

Less debt

Most households live pay check to pay check, (according to a various surveys), so why spend your hard earned money on something unless it is something you love, need or know you will et a lot of use out of. Spending less time shopping for material possessions and adding to the already growing amount of clutter means your wallet and bank accounts remain fuller, your credit card statements are lower, and your home doesn’t get filled with costly things you really don’t even need.

More energy

With less debt, and therefore more financial freedom, and of course, a cleaner home, you can focus your time and energy on the things you really enjoy instead of worrying about how much time you’ll need to put aside at the weekends, or evenings to tidy up.

So now you know some of the main benefits of decluttering your home and your life, where do you begin in this clean up operation? Well, here are a few of our top tips to get you started…

Start slowly

If you’re new to the world of decluttering, you can slowly build momentum by starting with perhaps a few minutes a day, or when you do have a spare rainy Sunday afternoon.

Donate clothes

The best way to find out what clothes you do and don’t wear, simply hang all your clothes with their hangers in the reverse direction. After you wear an item, face the hanger in the correct direction. After a few months, if you still have items of clothes facing the wrong way (clothes you haven’t worn), discard the clothes and take them to a charity shop for someone else to love and appreciate.

Donate items

It doesn’t just have to be clothes you get rid of. Maybe there are pieces of furniture lying around the house that you just don’t use or are just there… because. Take note of these items and if after a few months you haven’t used them, put them in your donate pile along with your unused clothes. Upcycling old pieces of furniture is very common at the moment so perhaps you could try selling the furniture on your local Facebook selling page, you might get a little something for it that could go towards your Summer holidays or a nice meal out with the family.

Create a decluttering checklist

It’s a lot easier to declutter when you have a visual representation of where you need to get started. You can use our decluttering checklist.

Take before and after photos of a small area

Choose one part of your home, like your kitchen counter, and take a photo of a small area. Quickly clean off the items in the photo and take an after photo. Once you see how your home could look, it becomes easier to start decluttering more of your home.

Get help from a friend. Have a friend or family member go through your home and suggest a handful of big items to throw away or give to someone else. If you defend the item and want to keep it, your friend has to agree with your reason. If they don’t agree, it’s time to get rid of it.

Use the Four-Box Method

Get four boxes and label them: trash, give away, keep, or re-locate. Enter any room in your home and place each item into one of the following boxes. Don’t skip a single item, no matter how insignificant you may think it is. This may take days, weeks, or months, but it will help you see how many items you really own and you’ll know exactly what to do with each item.

No matter which decluttering tip above you choose to get yourself started, the main goal is to take your first steps in to the decluttering world so you can see how much better it feels on the other side. Once you have finished going through your entire house and feel happy with what’s left, get yourself some good storage options to keep things looking tidy and clutter free. Keeping on top of it once you’re done will be so much easier and could mean cleaning only takes a few minutes a week!