4 Tips for clearing the clutter out of your home

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If you’re like most homes, you probably have a decent amount of clutter hanging around. Things just accumulate over time, and you never seem to find the time to get rid of any of it. Then, when you do happen to find time, you find a reason to not throw anything anyway. The result is a cluttered home, filled with things you no longer really need or want. If this sounds like you, it’s time to do something about it. Here are 4 tips you can use to help get rid of that clutter and bring some semblance of organization to your home.

Go Room by Room

One mistake a lot of people make when trying to declutter their homes is to try to do it all at once. You bounce around from room to room, moving things around and trying to decide what to get rid of. After spending a few hours doing this, you realize you’ve only made your home messier, and didn’t accomplish much.

A better strategy is to go room by room. Pick the room that is most cluttered, or the room you most want to get organized. Start there, and don’t move onto another room until you finish it. This will help to keep things simple, and hopefully keep you from becoming overwhelmed.

Separate Your Stuff into Piles

As you’re working on a room, separate everything into piles. By doing this you can clearly see what you want to do with each item and change your mind as you go along. Here are the piles that you should make.

First, a pile of the stuff you want to keep. It’s unlikely that you’re going to throw away everything in your home, so set aside the stuff that you want to keep. Try to be prejudicial and remember that the goal of this exercise is to remove clutter, not keep everything.

The next pile is stuff you want to move to storage. This is the stuff that you want to keep, but you don’t necessary have room for. Perhaps you have an old chest from your grandparents that you love, but that you just don’t have a place for. Putting things in storage is a great way to keep important things while still removing the clutter from your every day life.

After you’re done sorting your piles, you can find a good self-storage locker to keep everything in, where it will be kept safe until you need it. After that, make a pile of the things you think you can sell. Just because you no longer want something doesn’t mean someone else won’t. If you have things in good condition, try to get some money for them. Host a garage sale or put it up on eBay. You might not get much in return, but since the item was just taking up space anyway, it’s better than nothing.

Your fourth pile is things you can donate. Plenty of charities take unwanted items, and you can donate them here to help the charity and to get a tax write-off. Charities are typically looking for old clothes and furniture, but some places accept other things. Keep in mind that to donate something, it will typically need to be in good shape. According to Remove My Junk “Most donation companies won’t take furniture that has rips, tears, or stains in them. However, there are some companies that will take “well worn” furniture for refurbishing purposes”. For more on donating noncash items to charity, you can check out this guide.

Finally, the fifth pile is all the rest of the stuff – the stuff you’re going to throw away. Put in this pile anything you don’t want, and that you can’t give away. There’s no point in hanging onto things you don’t need, so cut the cord and get rid of it.

Buy Some Organizers

Once you have everything sorted and heading to the right places, it’s time to keep this problem from happening again. Buy yourself some good organizers and containers to store all the things you’re keeping. Removing clutter is great, but your home will look even better if the remaining stuff has a proper place and is stored in an orderly fashion.

Keep Up Your Habits

Finally, try to make decluttering a habit. Rather than going through this long process every few years, do it a little at a time. Make it a Spring cleaning habit to go through your stuff and see what you no longer need. By doing it each year you’ll make it less of a chore and help to keep your home organized year-round.

As you can see, it doesn’t take much to declutter your home. Hopefully this few tips will help you out, and you’ll be well on your way to a less cluttered home.

*Article courtesy of EiEiHome

Eiei Home
Eiei Home
A Reno + Decor Influencer
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