Having a cramped-up and cluttered space in your home can be very frustrating. It makes household chores all the more difficult and it can also have a negative influence on your psyche and mindset. It may also reduce your productivity and increase stress and anxiety.
Decluttering your home can seem to be a daunting task, but that is only if you do not know what you are doing and you are going about it the wrong way. It should be done with a minimalist approach
Here are 5 simple and creative ways to declutter your home.
1. Let it go
First thing is to identify items that you no longer have any use for but are taking up way too much space in the house. We all have those, they could be some old furniture like cupboards, cabinets, chairs, old TV sets, clothes, kitchen utensils, and whatnot that are no longer useful to us, hold no sentimental value but for some reason we have them laying around cluttering up the place.
It is time to let them go. You could simply just dispose of them or one cool way to get rid of them will be to donate them to charities in need of such items. Once you let them go, you open up huge spaces in your home and rid yourself of a lot of clutter.
2. Sort your stuff
It is however not every item that you can give up. Many of the things that clutter up space at home are materials that we use often and frequently and these need sorting.
To sort, get containers or storage boxes and designate them for specific purposes. Use one to hold items that require repair, another to hold clothes that require washing and another one to store away books and other items not of immediate use. Sorting your items this way will make your task of decluttering the home less cumbersome.
3. One room at a time
Trying to tidy up and declutter all the rooms all at the same time will prove to be too much to handle and most times will leave your house in a worse state than when you started. So, it is better to go by a room-to-room approach. This is less likely to tire you out and it divides your work into smaller achievable units. While there is no particular order to follow, it makes sense to proceed from the least cluttered rooms to the more cluttered ones.
In the bathroom, ensure to discard toiletries that you have stored away for too long without using them. Install racks and stands for towels, toothbrushes, soaps etc. So they are not always just lying scattered about the place.
In the kitchen, make sure that only frequently used utensils are left on the easy to reach areas like the slabs. Other items should be stored in the kitchen cabinets and only brought out when they are used.
At the entryway to the living room, ensure there are shoe trays and drop spots. In the bedroom, avoid allowing clothes to pile up on the floor or chairs, instead use a laundry basket to hold dirty clothes and have enough hangers for your clean ones.
4. Maximize your space
Another important simple and creative way to declutter your home is to maximize your space. For example, rather than having a waste bin in the kitchen taking up space, you can have it installed beneath your kitchen sink, and that way you have more space to maneuver.
You can also choose to convert spaces like the one beneath the staircase if you have one into a storage space for boxes and more. You should also maximize your wall space. You can do this by fixing racks, hangers and charts on the walls of your living room, kitchens, bathrooms and even bedrooms for keys, remotes, coats, spoons, toiletries and other easily displaced items in the house. You can also modernize your home exterior to increase space.
5. Set rules
Once you finally get your space in order and you have that satisfaction and peace that comes with a decluttered environment, you don’t want it to go back to how it was in just a few days.
To avoid this, you must set rules for yourself and members of your household to maintain your space the way you want it. Simple rules like “always hang your clothes” rather than tossing it on the closest chair or “placing shoes on the shoe trays” can go a long way in keeping your home always nice and tidy.
Conclusion
Keeping your home tidy and decluttered can drastically boost your productivity and make your home feel like home again.
