As you are aware, we are not in the business to clean your home of clutter. We are, however, in the business to clean your homes floors. We cannot do a good job of this if your home is cluttered and hard to navigate. We found this article to be a great resource to help you tackle the task of decluttering your home before you call for us to come clean your carpets. We know that for some this job is monumental and creates a headache just thinking of it. What if we told you that didn’t have to be the case? Here are 20 ways to declutter in just 20 days!
Make a date with your clutter
Your first task is to schedule an appointment with your space, says Kim Cosentino, professional organizer and owner of The De-Clutter Box, based in Westmont, Illinois. Most people never get around to clearing the clutter because their schedule is packed. So, just as you would schedule a regular checkup with your doctor, schedule an appointment with your home to begin organizing. Take two hours one morning and set that time aside to start getting things in order.
Pick a target
Look around your home and decide what overwhelms you the most. What frustrates you most often? Is it your disordered wardrobe? Or not being able to find the granola bars in the cupboard in the morning? Or is it the stacks of paper on the floor of your office? Pick the area that is most maddening and start there, says Cosentino. “Don’t go anywhere else while you are working on that space.”
Visualize the end result
When most people decide to get organized, their impulse is to head to the store and buy containers, says Kim Cossette, owner of The Organized Approach in Atlanta, Georgia. “But that is putting the cart before the horse.” The first thing you need to do is to think about your goal. What would you like your space to look like? What function would you like it to serve? Taking action to tackle your chaos is easier when you know where you’re headed. So hold off on the containers for now and work on your vision. Besides, later on when you figure out what containers you need, chances are you already have something in your house that could be repurposed.
Shed the surplus
Go through your target space and remove everything that doesn’t fit with your current needs, goals, and lifestyle, says Cossette. Don’t keep things that might be useful someday—only things that are useful to you today. Be honest with yourself. Do you use this item? Do you need it? Or do you love it? Those are the only three reasons to keep something. “Just because somebody else decides to give you something—including mail—doesn’t mean you have to keep it,” says Cossette. “If you are keeping it out of loyalty, you are doing yourself a disservice and a disservice to the person who gave it to you by not using it, so give it to someone who will.”
Keep three containers handy
As you work to remove the things you no longer need or want, keep three containers beside you: a laundry basket, a bag for donations, and a garbage/recycling bag. Put things that belong elsewhere in the house into the laundry basket. For example, if you are organizing your pantry, put the dog leash, notebook, roller skates, and pantyhose that you find lying around into the basket. Donate as much as you can to charities and recycle or trash the rest.
Gather like things together
If you don’t know where to start, work from left to right in the room, or from top to bottom, sorting things as you go. So, gather all pens and pencils together, pile up all of your pairs of pants together, or place all of your cereals in a group. Don’t stop to worry about whether you will keep an item or where you will put it. This will only slow down the process and overwhelm you.
Examine your groups
Now that all of your similar things are in one pile, you can make decisions about them, says Deb Oppel, a professional organizer and owner of Decluttered by Deb in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Do you really need 20 pairs of black pants? Some people keep pants in so many different closets and drawers that they have no idea they have so many pairs. Seeing them all together can be eye-opening. Get rid of items that are not being used or that are broken. Then narrow each pile down to your favorites. “We wear 20 percent of our clothes 80 percent of the time,” says Oppel. Which jeans do you actually wear? Which pens still work? Which items are you most likely to use? By the end of this winnowing, you can get a group of 20 items down to a few.
Maximize your space
Brainstorm various ways you can make the most of your space. Many kitchens and pantries have adjustable shelving. If the family cook cannot reach the pasta shelf, make it lower. If your pantry shelves are fixed, buy some stackers. These are fiberboard shelves (easy to find at Bed, Bath & Beyond, the Container Store, or Kmart) that can give you more space. Canned goods tend to be short, for example, and so you can create two layers of them with an additional shelf. Things that are used most often should get the prime real estate—the countertop or the lower shelves. If you are working on your closets, you can also add shelves.
Get things off the floor
Whenever possible, keep things off the floor, says Vivian Da Cunha, a professional organizer working in Brazil. This makes them easier to see and keeps the floor free of chaos. This is especially useful in the garage or the garden shed, where you can hang rakes, garden implements, tools, shovels, sleds, and other things, making them much easier to find.
Make a date with your clutter
Your first task is to schedule an appointment with your space, says Kim Cosentino, professional organizer and owner of The De-Clutter Box, based in Westmont, Illinois. Most people never get around to clearing the clutter because their schedule is packed. So, just as you would schedule a regular checkup with your doctor, schedule an appointment with your home to begin organizing. Take two hours one morning and set that time aside to start getting things in order.
Pick a target
Look around your home and decide what overwhelms you the most. What frustrates you most often? Is it your disordered wardrobe? Or not being able to find the granola bars in the cupboard in the morning? Or is it the stacks of paper on the floor of your office? Pick the area that is most maddening and start there, says Cosentino. “Don’t go anywhere else while you are working on that space.”
Visualize the end result
When most people decide to get organized, their impulse is to head to the store and buy containers, says Kim Cossette, owner of The Organized Approach in Atlanta, Georgia. “But that is putting the cart before the horse.” The first thing you need to do is to think about your goal. What would you like your space to look like? What function would you like it to serve? Taking action to tackle your chaos is easier when you know where you’re headed. So hold off on the containers for now and work on your vision. Besides, later on when you figure out what containers you need, chances are you already have something in your house that could be repurposed.
Shed the surplus
Go through your target space and remove everything that doesn’t fit with your current needs, goals, and lifestyle, says Cossette. Don’t keep things that might be useful someday—only things that are useful to you today. Be honest with yourself. Do you use this item? Do you need it? Or do you love it? Those are the only three reasons to keep something. “Just because somebody else decides to give you something—including mail—doesn’t mean you have to keep it,” says Cossette. “If you are keeping it out of loyalty, you are doing yourself a disservice and a disservice to the person who gave it to you by not using it, so give it to someone who will.”
Keep three containers handy
As you work to remove the things you no longer need or want, keep three containers beside you: a laundry basket, a bag for donations, and a garbage/recycling bag. Put things that belong elsewhere in the house into the laundry basket. For example, if you are organizing your pantry, put the dog leash, notebook, roller skates, and pantyhose that you find lying around into the basket. Donate as much as you can to charities and recycle or trash the rest.
Gather like things together
If you don’t know where to start, work from left to right in the room, or from top to bottom, sorting things as you go. So, gather all pens and pencils together, pile up all of your pairs of pants together, or place all of your cereals in a group. Don’t stop to worry about whether you will keep an item or where you will put it. This will only slow down the process and overwhelm you.
Examine your groups
Now that all of your similar things are in one pile, you can make decisions about them, says Deb Oppel, a professional organizer and owner of Decluttered by Deb in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Do you really need 20 pairs of black pants? Some people keep pants in so many different closets and drawers that they have no idea they have so many pairs. Seeing them all together can be eye-opening. Get rid of items that are not being used or that are broken. Then narrow each pile down to your favorites. “We wear 20 percent of our clothes 80 percent of the time,” says Oppel. Which jeans do you actually wear? Which pens still work? Which items are you most likely to use? By the end of this winnowing, you can get a group of 20 items down to a few.
Maximize your space
Brainstorm various ways you can make the most of your space. Many kitchens and pantries have adjustable shelving. If the family cook cannot reach the pasta shelf, make it lower. If your pantry shelves are fixed, buy some stackers. These are fiberboard shelves (easy to find at Bed, Bath & Beyond, the Container Store, or Kmart) that can give you more space. Canned goods tend to be short, for example, and so you can create two layers of them with an additional shelf. Things that are used most often should get the prime real estate—the countertop or the lower shelves. If you are working on your closets, you can also add shelves.
Get things off the floor
Whenever possible, keep things off the floor, says Vivian Da Cunha, a professional organizer working in Brazil. This makes them easier to see and keeps the floor free of chaos. This is especially useful in the garage or the garden shed, where you can hang rakes, garden implements, tools, shovels, sleds, and other things, making them much easier to find.
For the rest of this article go to Today.com.