Do you ever look around your house and wonder to yourself, “where did all this stuff come from?” You know you should get rid of some stuff, but you don’t know how to start decluttering when you feel overwhelmed.
I get it. I’ve been there too. Let me start today’s post with a little story.
You see, I went a good whole 10 or so years without decluttering. Let me tell you, without ever decluttering, 10 years is a good chunk of time to accumulate a lot of….stuff.
Why didn’t I declutter? The truth is, I never knew it is something you should regularly do. It just never dawned on me. I don’t remember ever seeing my parents declutter (though we didn’t live in a house overwhelmed by stuff so I’m sure at some point they got rid of some things) and I didn’t take a “how to be an adult 101” class.
Seriously, schools should start a class like that.
But that’s a subject for another day.
Anyways, what lead me to finally declutter? Well, we were selling our house so we had to get rid of our junk. We had an old shed FULL of stuff. You see, when we were done with items we just dragged it out to the shed to deal with it ONE day.
Yeah, I’m just gonna be straight with you. It. WAS. A. NIGHTMARE.
Trailer after trailer full of stuff went to the dump. And I promised myself never again would I ever wait that long to declutter.
Now, I’ll be the first to tell you I lack in the housekeeping skills. But getting rid of junk, that’s something I’m good at.
While we go through times where we are super busy and don’t get to as much decluttering as I’d like, we always circle around and get back to it.
And lately I’ve been on another decluttering rampage.
With the holidays coming it’s always a good time to get rid of some stuff. Today I want to share with you some tips on how to declutter and live minimally.
WHY SHOULD WE DECLUTTER AND LIVE MINIMALLY?
Because the less stuff we have the less time we have to spend dealing with it and I don’t know about you but I’d rather be outside exploring the woods with my family than re-organizing all my stuff in the basement.
Have you ever been sitting in a messy, cluttered room and then you clean it up and even get rid of some stuff and suddenly you feel less stressed? Like there’s less chaos in your life? Sure, decluttering won’t solve all your problems, but it will give you a less chaotic environment which is proven to reduce stress.
HOW TO START DECLUTTERING WHEN OVERWHELMED
I think many times we don’t declutter because we just don’t know where to start. We don’t know how to get motivated to clean when overwhelmed by mess that’s all around us.
The best way to get started when you are feeling like that is just to find a spot and chip away at it. Start small. Maybe there’s a junk drawer. Maybe there’s a closet. Maybe there’s a corner in a bedroom.
You want to attack this declutter issue by taking bite-sized chunks and working away at it. If you start thinking about how you have so much stuff sitting in your house that you need to get rid of you’ll get overwhelmed and quit or not even start.
Once you finish your corner, junk drawer, or closet, move on to the next thing. And you can just do one spot a day if that’s all you can handle. If you don’t know what to declutter first, take a look at this declutter your home checklist I created for free.
If you want a free printable pdf so you can check it off as you go just subscribe below and it will come straight to your inbox. 🙂
HOW TO DECLUTTER YOUR HOME AND YOUR LIFE
When deciding what to declutter, just go from room to room. Decide what to let go of. Now, I know this sounds easier said than done. One of the things I tell my children is that if they haven’t touched or played with an item for a year, it’s probably time to let it go.
As adults many of us are worried that we could end up getting rid of something we will need one day. I can tell you out of all the things I’ve gotten rid of over the years I think that’s maybe happened to be once. We think we are going to use more things than we actually do.
The other issue I’ve seen people run into is that when they have too much stuff they can’t find what they need when they need it so they end up buying a second one of whatever it is because they’ve lost the first one in their clutter.
So as yourself this when going through your items. Have you used it in the last year? If that’s not enough time to give yourself, have you used it in the past two years? I think you’ll be surprised at how many things you come across that you haven’t.
WHAT OTHER THINGS SHOULD YOU DECLUTTER?
When you think about how to declutter your home and your life consider decluttering beyond material things. What does your email inbox look like? (Let’s not talk about mine right now…it definitely is overdue for a BIG purge.)
What about your schedule? Is it decluttered to the point that you are constantly stressed and feel like you can’t breathe? It may be time to see what can go and what should stay.
HOW MUCH SHOULD YOU DECLUTTER?
I honestly don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all answer for this. There are people who limit the number of items they own to something like 100 items. And others will not bother with a number.
For me personally, as much as I’d like to be a minimalist because -let’s be fair, how awesome would it be to have way less stuff to clean- I have children, a dog, and also a husband who has no desire to be a minimalist. For us, it’s just not something that works with our lifestyle.
But I know when we have too much stuff. When the drawers aren’t closing well. When the mess starts taking over to unmanageable proportions. When there are items in my house that seem to get moved from location to location because no one really knows what to do with it but it just isn’t being used for it’s purpose anymore.
I kind of have a personal rule for a lot of areas in my home. If it doesn’t fit in the intended place, I need to declutter that space. So, for example, if my book shelf can’t fit anymore books on it that is not a sign for me to get another shelf. It’s a sign for me to declutter and cut back on the number of books we have.
REMOVE CHAOS FROM YOUR LIFE WITH DECLUTTERING
It’s amazing how a bit of decluttering can help your stress levels. It’s always beneficial to clear out some of the clutter from your life. If you don’t know what to declutter first, be sure to grab the printable list up above!
