All About That Clutter: Declutter Your Home With These Tips and Tricks

Credit: Kirill on Unsplash

A home is a sanctuary. It is a place where we come back to, expecting peace and safety, after a brutal day at work. It is a safe space where we can truly be who we want to be and escape from all the responsibilities of work. Imagine coming home from work and there are piles of clutter everywhere – unopened mail, unwashed laundry and dirty dishes. Surely it is unsightly! You are adding unnecessary stress into your life by leaving your home cluttered. 

Decluttering is not about throwing away all of your possessions but it is about throwing away the unimportant items. It is also about good organisation as well. Decluttering your home will bring it back to its original glory and make coming home a pleasant experience! Other than it being aesthetically pleasing, it also has so many other benefits such as an improved mental and physical health. So, are you ready to transform your home and make it clutter free? Decluttering might seem like an overwhelming task but fear not, here we have compiled a list of tips and tricks you can follow on your journey to a decluttered home. 

Before you start, get these items ready for your decluttering project. 

• Trash bags or bins. These are for you to toss your clutter away. 
• Donation bag or box. These are for the items that you feel might be too much of a waste to throw away. They should be relatively new and are still in good working condition.
• Antibacterial wet wipes and cloths. While you are decluttering, you are bound to find dust, dirt and stains. Having these nearby can let you clean as you declutter your space. 

Start off decluttering room by room. 

• To make the process less daunting, decluttering room by room lets you take a break in between rooms if you get too tired. Fun tip: You can take before and after pictures of the room or area you are decluttering as a form of motivation that you did a job well done! 
• Start with one area or zone. When you enter a room, pick a corner or a drawer, a cabinet or a shelf to start decluttering. This selected zone or area will help you determine what are the items that belong there and what does not. 
• Empty everything. Start by emptying the drawer, cabinet, zone, or storage facility that you have chosen to begin with. This allows you to start with a clean slate and you can decide what goes where. This keeps things more organised! 

What to throw? 

• Expired and broken items. During the first ten minutes, throw away everything that is obviously broken, useless or expired. These are the items that you knew all along that you should have tossed before allowing them to become clutter. If you are decluttering your kitchen or medicine cabinet, throw away expired goods and medicine. Items to throw in the first few minutes are those that are clearly trash. 
• Unnecessary and useless items. After you have gotten rid of the expired and broken items, next is to target the unnecessary and useless items. Whether to toss these items might require a bit more thinking from you as these might be items that you bought and rarely use. If they do not belong to the area you are decluttering, is there another place to house them? If the answer is no, you should toss these items. 

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What to keep?

• Items you use regularly. These are items that you clearly need and use regularly. It could be your stationery, books and even your facial cleaning products. Just remember to place and arrange them neatly back into your storage space. Keep these items easily accessible so that you do not need to create a mess to find them. 
• Important and necessary items. There may be some items like your first aid kit where you do not use regularly but are important and necessary. Think about the purpose of such items and make sure they serve your needs. It is important to understand the purpose of these items before putting them back into your storage space. 

What to do with sentimental clutter?

• • Over the course of our lives, we form emotional attachments to certain objects and items in our lives, and these are the ones that are hard to determine whether to toss or keep. 
  • Let it go. Sometimes we receive gifts and they might not be entirely useful in our lives. But because these items hold sentimental values, we tend to keep it thinking that we will use it one day. When decluttering sentimental items, ask yourself these honest questions: can I still use this item? Is it still functional? Does it bring me joy? If your answer to these questions is no, you should let them go and throw them away. 
  • Get a memory box. Some sentimental clutter might seem impossible to throw and that is because you also need to remember that it is perfectly fine to keep a few personal items. Maybe it is an old graduation photo of you and your friends, or maybe old family photos, or memorabilia from your holidays. You can get a memory box to store all these items so they do not become a part of the clutter pile. 

Credit: Roman Kraft on Unsplash

What to donate?

• Items that you donate are those that you no longer need or want but then it seems like such a waste to throw. Before you put an item into the donate pile, you have to make sure that the item is working, in a good condition, and still has a purpose for someone else who might need it. 

Keep it up 

• If you have completed the above steps and tips, you should already have a pretty decluttered home. This next step is crucial and it is to keep it up. Continue to organise and declutter your items daily. Do not let clutter build up. It will only make things harder if you fall back into your old habits and have to do a large scale decluttering again! Put things where you have designated them and throw away useless items immediately. You have to keep it up to maintain a clean and decluttered home. 

Great! Now that you have cleared the clutter of your home, it is time to clean it! You can engage BUTLER’s housekeeping services to help you take your home’s cleanliness and organisation to a whole new level! Contact us now!