Decluttering your house can clear your mind and help you maintain mental and emotional wellbeing. Decluttering is not just keeping your house clean, it is getting rid of things you do not really need and putting them in the right place.
It is trimming away the fat of things so that you no longer have to wade through your rooms to get where you want to be and do what you want to do. It is trimming away stuff that no longer appeals to you or brings you happiness, peace, or satisfaction.
Why is House Decluttering a Good Idea?
The main purpose of decluttering your house is to get rid of all items that do not serve you well. It is a beneficial activity or task that can turn into a useful habit no matter your lifestyle.
When you are more focused on doing house decluttering, you will reap the wonderful benefits like:
- Reduced stress and anxiety
- Improved sleep
- Increased productivity and creativity
- Rediscovering lost items
- Rid allergens
- Save money
- Create space that is easier to clean and tidy
- Being able to store belongings with smart storage
Tips For How to Declutter Your House in a Day
- Stick To Your Game Plan and Move Quickly
Do not linger in one room or on one corner for more than the time you set on your timer. Once you’ve achieved your goal of removing the clutter in one room, move on to the other. Keep yourself in check and resist the urge to organize and clean.
- Categorize Your Clutter As You Move
Keep your containers with labels of the different categories for your clutter near you so you can quickly sort items as you move from one room to another or from one area to another in one room.
You can categorize your stuff based on the following:
- Trash
- Recycle
- Relocate
- Donate
- Put away or Keep
- Repair
- Give to someone else
- Determine and Follow an Order of Decluttering
You can create the order of rooms that you plan to declutter. It doesn’t matter what the order is as long as you stick to your plan.
The order may depend on the sequence of the access of the rooms in your house from the main entrance or whichever you feel is more appropriate and convenient for you.
Here are some samples order for decluttering room by room:
- Hall closet or coat closet
- Kitchen
- Living room
- Dining room
- Linen closet
- Bathrooms
- Bedrooms
- Storage areas (basement, attic, other closets)
- Clothes closet
- Make the Most of Wall Space
As you declutter areas and rooms in your house, you will discover that you are freeing up space that you can use for storing useful items that you regularly use.
For example, in the kitchen, you can create space for storing pots, pans, and spices. In the garage, you can create extra space for handy tools in case you need them.
- Keep Flat Surfaces Clear
Whenever you move from one room to another, make sure that you reduce surface items to just the essentials.
Resist the urge to display and collect items that you do not regularly use like a kettle or a toaster on a kitchen counter and a lamp on a nightstand.
This will remind you to prevent items from piling up or building on flat surfaces.
The Goal of House Decluttering
Do not be confused with decluttering, cleaning, organizing, and deep-cleaning or deep purging. Decluttering simply means sorting out what you do not already need and classifying them into where they should go.
There are two main important objectives that you would want to achieve when you want to be successful in decluttering:
- Removing surface clutter: These are things that are out in the open that you can clearly see are not in the right place.
- Removing low-hanging fruit: These are items that you can easily classify as trash or needs to be thrown away, things that belong to a specific place, or things you want to donate or give away.
How to Get Ready To Declutter Your House in One Day
When you want to achieve the goal of decluttering your house in one day, you should clearly understand that you should not be cleaning, organizing, purging, and organizing clothing.
These processes should be scheduled for another day. Resist the urge to do these so that you can finish decluttering in one day.
It will be helpful to prepare your house for your decluttering project by doing the following steps:
- Gather supplies like boxes and large trash bags where you will place items that you have sorted or classified. You can sort things in boxes or trash bags in these categories:
- Trash
- Keep/relocate
- Donate
- “Give to a specific person” (optional)
- Staging or temporary storage for keeping or relocating items that do not have a home
- Repair
- Use a timer to limit your stay in one room.
- Create and schedule a plan for donations and arrange for pick up, if possible.
- Prepare mentally to declutter by making sure you have your playlist ready if you want to listen to music while decluttering and wearing comfortable clothes and footwear. Make sure that you are ready to let go of stuff that you are not using and needing.
Stay In Control When You Declutter Your House
Once you know where to start and you have a plan on how to declutter your home in one day, you will start to feel less overwhelmed.
Create a system on how you will accomplish your goal and use a timer to help keep you focused and stay in control when you want to finish decluttering in just one day. Lighten your load and feel and think better by decluttering.