The birds are chirping, the flowers blooming… springtime is here again! It’s a time for new and fresh beginnings, and for many, that means it’s time for a good spring cleaning. This year, why not start with a declutter? It might add a little more time to your annual deep clean, but it’s sure to make your home a much more pleasant place to clean, and live in, the rest of the year. Everyone deserves to live in a stress-free home! It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it!
Decluttering can be a massive undertaking, a daunting task that can overwhelm even the most motivated among us. The best way to tackle the chaos and clutter in your home is one space at a time. Remember, it probably took years to accumulate, so don’t expect to get rid of it in a day.
Anyone can create a stress-free home with a little elbow grease. Just focus on one room at a time, or even a section of it, like a drawer or a bookshelf. Slowly, but surely, you will start to see a difference.
start small
To kickstart your decluttering adventure, I suggest starting small, with one of three specific spaces: your bathroom cabinet, pantry, or your junk drawer. (Everyone has a junk drawer; don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.)
Starting with any of these will be relatively quick and painless since these spaces are unlikely to house items with sentimental value. A quick transformation will fill you with a sense of accomplishment and motivate you to do more.
A quick transformation will fill you with a sense of accomplishment and motivate you to do more.
Open up your medicine cabinet and throw away any expired medicine, make-up, and other perishable products. The job is already mostly done! Now just rearrange the remaining products neatly so that you can clearly see each one without having to move anything around.
Try to keep the items and products you use most often at eye level. You will be amazed at how much easier it is to get ready in the morning when everything you need is clearly visible and easily accessible.
uncluttered & organised
Now that you’ve ensured a smoother start to your days, declutter your pantry to bring order to meal preparation. Throw away any expired items and donate any exotic herbs or spices you bought for a recipe you wanted to try, but you know you’ll never make again. Imagine actually being able to make a 30-minute-meal in 30 minutes… That dream easily becomes a reality when you aren’t wasting time searching for the oregano that you were so sure was just behind the sugar and underneath the cinnamon.
And as far as your junk drawer is concerned, how about getting rid of it altogether? Why, you ask? The answer is already in the name. If it’s junk, why are you holding on to it? If you like, we can call it the miscellaneous drawer. But you still have to go through it and get rid of the dried-out pens, plastic bits that used to belong to a kinder surprise toy, expired coupons, old phone chargers, and whatever other treasures you may find in there.
Throw away anything that is broken, recycle anything that’s recyclable, and put away what’s left where it will be of use. Had you stored those coupons near your grocery list, you might have actually used them.
Taking back control of these three small spaces will bring you that much closer to a stress-free home. Next, you can start to tackle bigger jobs, like your closet, kitchen cabinets, home office and so on… Before you know it, you’ll have decluttered your entire home, and simplified your life in the process.
Control your clutter
Ok, mission “Declutter” is complete. How do you keep clutter from taking over again?
A certain amount of clutter is inevitable in any home, but once you’ve completed your first major decluttering, there are some things you can do to keep things under control with little effort.
Make a habit of putting things back in their place as soon as you are done using them. Although this seems obvious, it was much harder to do pre-declutter, because things didn’t necessarily have a place. But now with a home for every item, putting things away will be effortless.
From now on, Just Say No! Say no to free samples, complimentary gifts, and promotional products. If you only want it because it’s free, then you don’t really want it, and you definitely don’t need it. Whatever it is, it WILL end up being clutter. So instead of bringing it home only to move it around from countertop to table to countertop before eventually throwing it out, just don’t bring it home in the first place.
think c.A.l.m. for a stress-free home
Now that you’ve finished your first declutter and you’re committed to creating a relaxing, calming home, all you have to do is think C.A.L.M.
C = Clear off and clear out horizontal surfaces and storage spaces.
A = Allocate every object to a specific place.
L = Label any boxes or containers to make finding things a breeze.
M = Maintain the order by making sure everything goes back to its home at the end of the day, just like you do!
Try the C.A.L.M. method daily (or weekly if you just can’t find the time) to tackle the clutter that will inevitably creep its way back into your home. Make sure any new additions to your home have an allocated space and update any labels to include new items. That will make the Clear and Maintain steps a breeze.
The next time Spring rolls around, you and your clutter-free home will be ready. Spring cleaning will be a cinch, and just like the rest of the year, spending less time on housework means more time to stop and smell the roses, or just put your feet up and enjoy the calm and stress-free home you’ve created.
