So, you´re on lockdown and confined to your home for the next few weeks and you´re running out of things to do. Now you have the perfect opportunity to declutter your home and start afresh.
Decluttering your home during the lockdown will not only give you something to do, but can also be extremely therapeutic and will take your mind off all the “Corona Anxiety” that seems running riot at the moment.
So, here´s our top 10 tips to declutter your home!
1. Have a plan
Having a plan will keep you focused on one task at a time and will help you organise the job into sections.
Start off by making a list of each room, and write down what things are currently in that room, what should be in that room, and what sections need to be decluttered.
For example;
Bedroom – Bedside tables – Wardrobes – Clothes
2. What´s in that drawer?
As humans, it can often be difficult to throw things away. That´s why it can often be useful to play a little game of “What´s in that drawer/cupboard?”.
When you´re going to tackle that cluttered draw in the kitchen, or the overflowing bedside table, set yourself a challenge before you open it.
Make a list of everything you think is in that drawer or cupboard before opening it.
If when you open drawer, there´s a ton of stuff that isn´t on your list, then put it in a pile to throw out.
2. Be brutal!
As we said, it can be hard to throw things away. You always think “what if I need this in the future?”. So try to remember the last time you used it.
If you couldn´t even remember where this object was, do you think you´d find it again when you come to need it again in the future?
And even if you could find it again, wouldn´t it be nicer to know exactly where it is before you look?
BE BRUTAL! If you didn´t know it was there, get rid!
3. Tackle one room at a time.
For such an overwhelming task, its better to break it down into timed sections. If you want to set aside just 10 minutes and you only manage to sort out your bedside table, then so be it. After all, many of us have all the time in the world right now!
Tackling one room at a time will make it easier to just close the door on that room and know that its done, and on to the next.
4. Clean at the same time.
There´s no point in decluttering your home, if you´re just going to put things back into a dusty drawer or cupboard.
When decluttering, make sure you completely empty the area and give it a good clean before putting your stuff back into place.
For allergy suffers this can make a world a difference”
5. How many chargers do you need?
We´ve all got that one drawer in the house that is jam packed full of old chargers and cables that serve no purpose whatsoever. Do you really thing you´ll ever need that 2003 Nokia charger again?
The only chargers you need should be one per person, per item.
Throw away the ones that have no purpose, and divide the rest out to other family members to give them a place where they´ll always keep that charger.
6. Make it worse!
As the saying goes, “It gets worse before it gets better”, that saying couldn´t be more relevant right now during this global pandemic, but it also works for decluttering your home.
Emptying all drawers, cabinets and cupboards on to the bed, or middle of the living room floor will help for several reasons.
Firstly, you´ll be a bit more brutal with what you throw out, because you´ll want to hack away at the clutter mountain a lot quicker.
Having everything empty will help you see old redundant spaces that can be repurposed.
Start with the important stuff, such as documents, and then move on to other stuff like books and clothing.
7. DVDs, Videos, CDs…
Now this is a tough one. For years, we collected DVDs and CDs, we even have had them in alphabetical order and beautifully displayed in fancy vertical cabinets next to the television, despite knowing that have the boxes had the wrong discs in them.
But lets be real, when was the last time you watched a DVD or listened to a CD? This is 2020… We have an endless source of streaming services at our finger tips, where literally millions of movies, TV series and songs take up less space than a single television remote.
Get rid! I mean, not even Blockbuster´s have DVDs any more!
8. Throw out the rubbish!
Now, we´re using the term “rubbish” very loosely here. By this, we mean “rubbish” in terms of stuff that will one day inevitably become rubbish, things such as shoe boxes and old magazines etc.
Getting rid of all this useless items should be pretty, as chances are you don´t have much of an emotional attachment to a 2012 edition of Hello Magazine?
If you haven´t at least filled one large bin bag to the brim in the first half an hour, then you´re not throwing away enough!
9. Give it a home.
“Every thing in its place”.
Personally, I was always quite a tidy child, but one thing that wouldn´t absolutely infuriate me, would be when I´d look for something, only to find that it had been “tidied”, by someone else and moved to a mysterious new location.
And when I questioned said tidyer on the new whereabouts of my lost action figure, there would be no answer!
Make sure everything has a place, and that everyone know where that place is.
10. The 2-minute rule
Practicing the 2-minute rule will help keep your clutter-free home in as pristine condition as possible, for as long as possible.
But what is the 2-minute rule?
The 2-minute rule is incredibly simple, and will totally change the way you keep your home.
If you see something out of place, untidy, and just something that needs doing in general, and you know that it will take just 2 minutes to do the job, then do it right away!
After all, it´ll only take 2 minutes, and then it’s done, thus reducing the chances of all these 2-minute jobs from adding up to a 2-hour job.
Well, that´s all from us with our decluttering tips! We hope this helps and feel free to share with us how this article has helped you create a clutter free environment during these testing times.
