Decluttering Methods while Staying at Home

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Decluttering while staying at home can feel like an eternal problem. No matter how many times you set out to do it, it seems clutter tends to overtake you again. If this is

your problem, it’s time to reconsider first how you see clutter. It’s time to kick the clutter habit to the curb once and for all! Read on to know how you can be clutter-free. Finding decluttering methods during this time can bring you freedom.

 

Decluttering methods can bring ease and simplicity into our lives while staying home. If you live in a disaster zone, like an area that experiences floods or wildfires, chances are you already have a plan in place of what you would grab if you needed to evacuate in a hurry. If you don’t, then this question is for you: Which items are the most important things out of all your stuff?

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Questions like this are sometimes hard to answer when you’re staring around the room and seeing all the things you’ve worked hard to attain. If you’re having a hard time choosing what you’d take with you, get out of the house and sit down where you can make a list without looking at your stuff. 

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If you had a tornado or fire and lost everything, what items would you want to replace first? What would you mourn the most? Whatever is on your list is what you should keep. The rest is just clutter.

Losing your sanity staying home? Declutter! Follow the decluttering methods below for sanity!

Don’t Burn Yourself Out Before You Even Truly Begin.

Trying to do a marathon declutter session is a sure way to crash and burn. Instead of exhausting yourself on a massive overhaul, add decluttering to your daily routine. Set a timer for 15 – 30 minutes and declutter until it goes off. That not only keeps you from wearing yourself out but makes a game out of tidying. Kaizen-style always works out best in the long term.

Step 1 Decluttering Method While Staying Home:

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Grab Some Boxes

Sort everything in the room into four boxes: Keep, Get Rid Of, Store, Toss. By adding the box for storage, you give yourself time to think about whether you want to retain an item you’re on the fence about keeping. That can be useful if you’re trying to distance yourself from something with emotional ties. 

Revisit the storage boxes often and make a point to sort through items using the same four-box method at least once a year. This decluttering method can give you long term ‘stuff’ sanity.

Getting rid of a clutter habit isn’t as hard as you think. Staying dedicated to working through your stuff will create a new mindset and great patterns to keep you from falling into the clutter trap ever again.

Decluttering Methods while Staying Home

6 Steps to a Decluttered Home Office

Nothing hurts productivity and peace of mind more than a cluttered workspace, primarily when you work from home. How do you keep your office under control? Start with these quick and easy decluttering steps:

Deal with Paper Clutter Before It Happens

By having an inbox on your desk where mail and other paper items go, you cut a lot of the mess that tends to spread out over every work surface. You should use this box only for new work waiting for your attention. If you have a lot of projects, try keeping the accompanying paper clutter in folders out of the way, for example, in a desk drawer until needed. The key here is to keep things under control right from the start.

Paper clutter is one area that most need a decluttering method while staying at home, that can last for the long term. Let’s get creative!

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Clear Your Desk while Staying and Working from Home

There should be very little on your desk other than what you need right now to get your job done. That means keeping it bare of everything except the phone, your computer, and what you’re working on right now. Everything else should be put away until you need it.

Decluttering Method: Remove the Odds and Ends

Is your desk space full of knick-knacks or other items that serve no purpose? These kinds of things can be distracting. Get rid of them or place them somewhere more appropriate such as a shelf where you can arrange them into a beautiful display if needed.

Reconsider Paper Use – Decluttering Method for Life

A lot of the paper items in an office are unnecessary. Be kinder to both yourself and the environment by paying attention to unnecessary printouts. Get in the habit of reading things on a screen instead. Even something like a travel boarding pass doesn’t require a printout so long as you have them on your phone. The less paper you use, the better!

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Tidy the Drawers Decluttering Step for Feeling Great

Desks become the repository for so much clutter! Take some time to go through each drawer. You’ll find most of what you’ve tucked away are things you don’t need at all.

Clean the Floor – Yep this decluttering step matters!

Out of sight doesn’t necessarily mean out of mind. Those items you tucked under your desk out of sight of visitors are still there to bedevil your peace of mind. The floor is for your feet. Period. The rest is clutter. Toss it or put it away appropriately. 

Decluttering Methods while Staying Home with Kids

The moment you have kids, you’ll find yourself in the world of a special kind of clutter, one that will take up space on every surface and cover your floors in no time flat. 

From toddler blocks to Legos, you’re going to be dancing through the minefield of tiny toys unless you do something fast to get things under control. 

Where do you even begin? One decluttering step at a time!

Recognize Everything Starts in the Ground Rules

Tell your kids they can’t play with something new without first putting away the old toys. That helps you keep things from getting out of control right at the start.  While it may take some of your energy to enforce this, the long term benefits of this decluttering method are worth your enthusiastic enforcement!

Have a Place for Everything

Every toy and craft supply should have some regular storage place, whether you’re using a fancy system of drawers and closet organizers or recycled shoe boxes. The important thing is to make sure anything new that comes into the house has someplace where it lives. Try sticking to the practice of getting rid of something old before bringing in something new, to keep from running out of space.

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Empower the Children to Own this Decluttering Step

By creating a clean-up routine without song or dance, the tidying routine becomes fun. Include your child in this process. Make them the ‘clean-up supervisor,’ in charge of ensuring everything is put away properly. 

Kids love having authority, which makes this aspect of the game appealing. If you have multiple children, be sure to rotate who’s in charge, so everyone gets a turn.

Create Personal Bins for Belongings – * Decluttering Method *

Designate a basket with the child’s name on it for their stuff. Keep it somewhere central in the house, so both you and child have a place to store items during the day. Make a practice of putting lost items in the basket, and have your child take their basket upstairs to their bedroom at the end of the day to empty it and put away the items stored within. That keeps you from excessive clutter all over the house.

When All Else Fails, Take Things Away

The child who refuses to clean up sometimes needs a little tough love. Items left out after being asked to pick up should be removed by the parent. Don’t be afraid to make the child earn back the toy by doing extra chores around the house.

The important thing when dealing with kid clutter is to remember your child needs to be part of the clean-up process. Teaching them good habits now about how to take care of their things is going to serve them for their entire lives. Raising children to be organized and in control of their own belongings is a gift we give them. Even if we struggle with these decluttering methods ourselves, giving them the steps to overcome is important.

Decluttering Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Saying Goodbye to Sentimental Stuff.

We all have those items we would hate to lose, whether it’s an old collection of love letters or a cuddly stuffed animal you slept with as a child. The problem is, even those items become clutter when there’s too much of it. How do you tidy up without losing those memories?

Make Use of the Scanner – An Important Decluttering Method

When going through old papers and essential documents, start by deciding which items are worth keeping. Scan and upload those documents to a service that will hold a backup you can’t possibly lose. (Remember, scanning absolutely everything leads to digital clutter though, so only choose what’s essential).

 Next, decide if you still need the originals. If you don’t, shred everything once it’s safely digitized. If you must keep originals, put them somewhere safe, like a filing cabinet, fireproof safe, or a safety deposit box at your local bank.

Ditch Physical Copies of Music and Movies

We’re in the age of the internet and have the cloud at your fingertips. Why keep movies and music around in a tangible form? The individual boxes are small, but when you put them all together, they take up a great deal of space. Put what you want to keep online and donate or sell those old DVDs and CDs. Now your collection is available wherever you are.

This may not be a decluttering method you or your family are ready to embrace – that’s okay, take it incrementally, Kaizen-style and enjoy the results.

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Take Pictures for Memories – Sentimental Decluttering Step

Sentimental objects might seem a little harder to declutter at first glance, but they don’t have to be. Start by taking lots of pictures of those items with emotional attachment. Once you’ve taken all the photos, choose the objects you absolutely can’t part with and put the others in the donate box. Only keep what can fit into a smallish box.

Some Quick tips for decluttering steps?

• Download your favorite books instead of owning physical copies. Now you can read them anytime, anywhere.

• Give family heirlooms to other family members who might appreciate them more. You can ‘visit’ the items again when you see that family member, while at the same time blessing them with something they will cherish.

• Remind yourself your vintage objects are worth cold, hard cash to the right person. If you’ve already had your enjoyment of an object, let it go to bless someone else while you pocket the profit. 

Letting go of a physical object doesn’t mean letting go of the significance of an object or even the experience of having owned it. It means keeping the essential aspects of it, whether it’s a picture or some other record of the memory, without needing the clutter of the object itself.

Get Rid of These Six Things Cluttering Up Your Craft / Sewing / Scrapbooking Stash

Any crafter cringes when you talk about cleaning up their craft stash. But let’s face it, there’s so much clutter in your craft corner, you probably have a hard time finding what you need or find yourself buying multiples of the same thing because you don’t know what you have. Since you genuinely do not need a dozen tape measures, read on for a quick list of stuff to declutter out of your stash.

Decluttering Method for Paper Items

Paper clutter can very quickly take over a craft room, especially if you’re into scrapbooking. Sort through odds and ends in your stash and ask yourself what you’re likely to use. Toss out the scraps you thought before were too big to throw away (they aren’t) and all the excess you’re never likely to use. No longer scrapbooking? Free it to someone who is or toss it out. Even if you start scrapbooking again, you’re not likely to want the same things anymore.

Things to Write or Draw with that have Lived Past their Usefulness.

Dried out markers or paint, broken chalk, brushes not washed out properly, non-working pens, or calligraphy tools with broken nibs are all things to toss immediately. There is nothing you can do to salvage any of these items, and it will be easier to find a utensil you can use when next you look for one if you get rid of these things now. This decluttering method is so satisfying!

Let Go of Tools or Supplies You No Longer Use

There’s no shame in walking away from a hobby if it no longer gives you pleasure. If you’ve had enough of knitting socks for a lifetime, consider donating the yarn or other supplies to people who love the craft, like a local nursing home. Get rid of any tool you haven’t used in the past two years. That goes for yarn and fabric as well.

Broken Items – Decluttering Step You Must Embrace

It should go without saying, but if it’s broken, toss it. That’s especially true for anything electrical in nature, with worn or frayed cords. Don’t risk a fire for the sake of making something. Take this decluttering step today.

Projects Left Unfinished for Years -Let Go – Find Freedom

Ask yourself if you’re ever likely actually to finish the project. If the answer is no? Out it goes. Such freedom enhancing decluttering step!

Duplicate Items – Another Crucial Decluttering Step

Got caught up in buying an object when you couldn’t find it last time? When you find the original, toss the new one in the donate box. 

Getting your craft stash under control is a great feeling. Imagine being able to find what you need, when you need it! Imagine just how productive you’re going to be once you’re neat and organized. 

5 Hacks for Staying Decluttered

Decluttering your home is the natural part of the equation. Keeping it decluttered can be another matter entirely. How do you manage the mess before it happens so you can keep your home feeling the way it does after tidying up? It starts with building some good habits geared toward staying decluttered. Here are the hacks to get you started:

Put Decluttering on Your Calendar!

Scheduling time to declutter your home every day makes it part of your routine—you’ll get in the habit of tidying as you go. Set a timer and permit yourself to stop when it goes off. Even 15 minutes a day will help keep your clutter under control.

Decluttering Method Rules Regarding New Purchases

You just bought a new pair of shoes? Great! Now it’s time to get rid of an old pair. Making rules about removing an item from the house when you buy an item keeps things from building up all over again. Generally, it’s pretty easy to find a possession to remove, as often buying something new indicates particular displeasure over something you already own. If the thought of getting rid of something makes you cringe, maybe you don’t want that new pair of shoes after all.

A Decluttering Step to Be Consistent with: Donate the Donation Items Regularly

Keep a donation box out at all times so that you and your family toss in unwanted items consistently. Once that box is full, hustle the box off to the donation center. The longer you keep it around, the more likely you are to create excuses as to why you still need the object you put in there. If you can’t get there immediately, at least put it in your car trunk, so it’s out of sight.

Take Pictures – A Satisfying Decluttering Method

Nothing is more heartening than a before and after shot of an overly cluttered and messy room that you’ve tidied. Use those pictures for inspiration when you’re feeling overwhelmed by this decluttering process. Remind yourself how good it felt when you finished decluttering another room.

Say Maybe – A Decluttering Method to Make it Easier

If you’re not sure about whether you should get rid of an item or not, put it in a “Maybe” box somewhere out of sight. You may find it turns out you don’t even miss the article after a couple of weeks or longer, it’s probably time to let it go altogether. If you find yourself looking for the thing, put it back.

These hacks will help you stay decluttered once you’ve already gotten the process started. If you keep them up, after a while, the hacks will become automatic. Imagine the difference it will make when you’re free of all those things that have been holding you down!

 

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