Spring time is just around the corner and with it comes spring cleaning! Start the warmer season off the right way, with a freshly decluttered, organized space for you and your family to enjoy!
It can feel a little overwhelming to get started on doing one big spring clean of the entire house, so we’ve put together some tips to help you get it all done, while still maintaining your sanity!
1. Give Yourself Enough Time
Don’t start decluttering if you know you don’t have time to finish what you’re starting. If the plan is to go through the entire coat closet, or all of your dresser drawers, make sure you have the time to get all the way through that area. Set aside time when your kids are occupied or out of the house, and then get ruthless! The goal is to go through every sweater, game, book, and stray pencil and reevaluate whether or not you really need it taking up space in your home.
That’s not to say that if you only have 20 minutes you can’t spend that time decluttering. For those shorter periods of time, choose a smaller project that you can accomplish quickly. For example, maybe clear out the junk drawer or the overflowing basket of mismatched socks in the laundry room. Having a shorter time limit for those projects can help you be ruthless with yourself and because you want to finish it while you can, you will.
2. Divide Your Home into Sections - and Go Through it Section by Section
It can be overwhelming and disheartening to try to declutter your home when you’re looking at it as a whole. Dividing your home into sections makes the project more manageable and will keep you motivated!
Start in one section and don’t start another until you’ve finished it. If you do a cupboard in the kitchen, the hall closet, a dresser drawer, and your desk, you might look at what you’ve accomplished by the end of the week and feel discouraged that you don’t feel like you’ve gotten anywhere. Instead, by going through a section of your home every day that week, by the weekend you’ll have it done, motivating you to move onto the next!
3. Only Keep What You Love and Use
A good concept to keep in mind when you’re decluttering your home is the 80/20 rule. When it comes to clothes, we generally only wear 20 percent of the clothes we own 80 percent of the time. This concept tends to be true for most items that we own, electronics, books, movies, toys, etc. Your goal should be to get rid of the things you aren’t using 80 percent of the time.
4. Sort your Stuff
When you’re going through each section of your home, sort your items into 4 piles.
- Keep Pile
- Toss Pile
- Donate Pile
- Sell Pile
After you’re done sorting immediately take your toss pile to the garbage, put your donate pile in your car to take to the donation center next time you’re out, and list the items from your sell pile online. Getting it all out of your space as quickly as possible will help you see the progress and keep your home from getting overly cluttered.
5. Keep up the Process
Once you’ve made it through your entire home, now it's time to maintain. Decluttering is a process. The good thing is maintaining an organized, decluttered home isn’t nearly as hard as the initial declutter! Just doing a weekly 20-minute declutter should do the trick.
When more stuff comes in, get rid of the things you no longer use or love. The key is to remember why you wanted to simplify and declutter your space in the first place.
Doing an entire home ‘Spring Clean’ declutter can be overwhelming. These tips should help you get started and keep yourself motivated. What tips do you have for decluttering?
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