Throughout the years, people's lives and their homes can become cluttered. People become busy with work and relationships and life. And then one day, you look around your home and think, 'How has it got so messy?'. It's at this point that you realise you need to declutter. A lot of people believe that decluttering is stressful. That it needs unnecessary planning and ends up making more mess than when you started. But it doesn't have to be hard and it doesn't have to require masses of equipment. That's not to say you couldn't enlist the help of a handyman.Breda Stack, from the blog Declutter Therapy, was able to give some great advice on how to start decluttering. She runs many decluttering programmes and carries an array of professional certifications. She explains, "I've found over the last 10 years of developing my Declutter Therapy modality that we first need to take the time to understand and overcome the thoughts, beliefs and emotions that are behind our gathering of clutter and our inability to declutter. Only this brings real, lasting decluttering success."True freedom and peace of mind come from learning to let go of what's weighing us down on all levels, as well as the physical. And this inevitably brings unexpected, exciting transformation to all areas of our lives as well as our wardrobes, homes and workspaces."These simple tips can help you to declutter your home a little easier and with a little less stress. You never know, you could end up enjoying yourself.Start SimpleFaye from Simple Days suggests starting your decluttering slowly. There's no need to tackle your whole wardrobe all at once because more than often you'll get halfway through and then get bored, causing a bigger mess than before. She suggests "a good sweep around the house collecting up all the things that you already know can go. All the empty boxes, old magazines, broken electronics, piles of things to take to the tip, worn-out clothes, missing toys, charity shop collections and even things you have been meaning to eBay."All this surface clutter is a really easy way to get started and feel like you've made immediate progress. It's also good for motivation, leaving you more inclined to tackle the bigger jobs (like that bursting wardrobe or cupboard under the stairs)"One room at a timeSimilarly, to Faye's suggestion, you can also try tackling one room at a time. There is no use trying to declutter your whole house at once as it can become an impossible task. Start with rooms that you know can be ticked off easily like the bathrooms, utility rooms and landings. These rooms should be relatively easy to tidy and will give you a boost of motivation to carry on. Then you can begin to move on to more hectic rooms that may need a little more time and effort. Tackling a room every weekend can make it seem like less work and it will allow you time to plan instead of stressing about everything.Make a PlanIf you're struggling to figure out where to start, try drawing a plan of your home. Chrissy, creator of the blog Organise My House, tells us her biggest tip is "to have a plan for what you need to have, and where in your home you need it (I call this the Home Plan!)."Draw a floor plan or your house and label what the rooms are needed for, and therefore what items are needed in there. This will show you straight away where there are underutilised spaces like guest bedrooms and overused spaces that need to be thinned down in terms of what's stored there."If it fits in the home plan, then it's a yes - and if not, it may be removed completely or moved to a different room. By the time you get around your house, everything will have moved around to the right space or made its way out of your home completely. It's a much easier method than asking yourself if you love something and want to keep it - as that's far too emotional for most people and we can talk ourselves into keeping pretty much anything that way!"Wardrobe tipWhen looking to declutter your wardrobe you may be wondering how to decide what you want to keep and what you may need on the off chance. It's hard to declutter something that is so seasonal. One way to do this is to sort your wardrobe into seasons and store away your winter clothes in the summer and vice versa. However, if you don't have a lot of room to store clothes there is another way you can try. Budget Dumpster states that "we generally only wear 20% of the clothes we own 80% of the time". This means you could have a top in your wardrobe that you haven't even looked at for 6 months. If this is you, then organising your clothes could make it all a little easier.By sorting your wardrobe so you take from one side and put back in the other, you can see if any clothes are untouched. After 2 to 3 months, if you haven't reached for a particular item, it needs to go.Sorting SystemOnce you have begun decluttering, you're going to want to decide what to do with everything. It's not just about finding the right home for your belongings but also figuring out what things you should keep and what things are 'weighing you down' as Breda put it. A way to do this is to find a sorting system that works for you so you can stay on top of everything you want to keep and all the things you want to get rid of.An example of this is the three-bin method. You can do this with piles, boxes or bags, whatever is readily available to you. The way it works is you separate things into the keep pile, the bin pile and the storage pile. Or similarly, if you don't have somewhere to store, the charity pile for things that are too good to be thrown in the rubbish. It's a great way to keep your decluttering a bit more organised.By following these easy steps, you can make decluttering less stressful and more organised. It will transform your home and allow you to have a little bit more space. Decluttering is great for your home but also for your mental health too. A tidy home is a tidy mind!If you need more help with organising or your decluttering has led to some needed refurbishment, don't hesitate to contact our team at Handywork Solutions. image:
