How do I get rid of clutter?
View hidden commentThis post was sourced from submitted reader questions and posted by wikiHow Editorial Staff, based on our article: How to Declutter Your Whole Home: A Simplified Guide
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I focus on one category at a time. For instance, I was with a young girl yesterday in her bedroom getting her ready for back to school, and we went through her little vanity. Well, her vanity had makeup in it, but it also had pens and notebooks in it. So we only focused on the makeup first. I didn't want her bouncing between makeup and then the paper and then pens. So we focused just on the makeup, then we moved on to hair accessories, then perfume. Instead of throwing everything on the floor and going through everything all at once, she's just looking at one category and it makes it that much easier to declutter because you're looking at just that category and deciding, “what do I want to keep, what do I want to toss, what do I want to donate?”
We make those piles, and then we don't disperse anything throughout the house until we're done. Because a big part of the decluttering process is moving things to more appropriate places, maybe this needs to go in the kitchen, this needs to go in the bathroom, etc. What happens is you get distracted, you lose focus, and now your project's taking you twice as long, and now you're tired and you've wasted energy. So I hold people to that room the whole time we're getting organized. Then, when we're done, we disperse those items to where they need to go. I think that's the best advice I can give for when you're decluttering, to stay in the room that you're working in .
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We make those piles, and then we don't disperse anything throughout the house until we're done. Because a big part of the decluttering process is moving things to more appropriate places, maybe this needs to go in the kitchen, this needs to go in the bathroom, etc. What happens is you get distracted, you lose focus, and now your project's taking you twice as long, and now you're tired and you've wasted energy. So I hold people to that room the whole time we're getting organized. Then, when we're done, we disperse those items to where they need to go. I think that's the best advice I can give for when you're decluttering, to stay in the room that you're working in .
Decluttering really comes down to three steps. The first step is to sort through all of your stuff and separate everything into categories. Then, go through each category one at a time and purge the things you don't want or need anymore. Finally, organize everything that's left by finding a good place for it.
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Try sorting through your stuff one room or section at a time, and decide to keep, donate, or throw away/recycle what you no longer need. One way to declutter your space is to cull items that don't reflect who you are right now
. In other words, you might be certain future you will have time to devote to learning how to knit, but if present you doesn't, it's time to donate your knitting needles and skeins of yarn. And while you may feel emotionally attached to items, if they don't serve a purpose, no longer fit, or are broken or worn out, it's probably best to let them go.
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For the stuff that you are keeping because it "might" be useful one day, how easily could you replace that item if you needed to? Say it's an extra phone charging cable; I could walk into town right now and buy a phone cable for a couple of pounds, possibly for a pound in Poundland if I needed it, so do I need to keep spares? Especially as we have more than one phone in the house so there are already multiple options for charging a device.
Store it at the store is a phrase I've heard and like. If it's easily replaceable you don't need to keep the excess at your home and even if it's not easily replaceable do you realistically need to keep it? Is it even relevant in your life right now? Past you might have been into that thing but maybe you've moved on to other things. Keep only what you need now.
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Store it at the store is a phrase I've heard and like. If it's easily replaceable you don't need to keep the excess at your home and even if it's not easily replaceable do you realistically need to keep it? Is it even relevant in your life right now? Past you might have been into that thing but maybe you've moved on to other things. Keep only what you need now.
when looking at your things ask yourself if it makes you happy or if you would regret getting rid of it
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