Where do you spend most of your time? For the vast majority of people, they live most of their lives in the comfort of their own homes.
Considering that fact, keeping your home in top condition is something you should prioritize. When properly cared for, your home can promote peace and relaxation in your body, mind, and spirit.
However, if the rooms within your home are cluttered and messy, it can consciously and subconsciously sour your spirits with its foul energy.
While it can be tempting to accumulate sentimental items over the years, it can lead to clutter, which can be quite detrimental to our productivity and health in the long run.
There are many approaches a homeowner can employ to reduce clutter around the house. This article will explore useful strategies aimed at helping your home improve its aura with a more inviting glow.
Let's take a look at these seven ways to declutter your house.
1. Enlist Professional Help
If your home is in dire need of a deep cleanse but you don’t have the time or liberty to do the cleaning yourself, you can always consider calling professional cleaning services to help you out.
In Australia and many other countries, there are cleaning agencies such as Absolute Domestics with specially trained helpers who can perform all the cleaning duties around the house. These services come with their own set of cleaning supplies, removing the need for you to provide cleaning tools yourself.
Besides being proficient in various cleaning tasks to help you declutter, they are also vetted and cleared for your safety and security.
On top of that, you can also ask for specific accommodations and they’ll be glad to help out, whether it’s a deep cleanse, a relocation, or a periodic service for aged parents.
By getting professional assistance, you can spend your free time however you’d like and get your house to a much neater state. This liberty can be liberating for people with a busy lifestyle, particularly for moms who have both a family and a career to juggle.
2. Do Short Bursts of Cleaning
If you want to do the cleaning yourself, that’s definitely still a possibility. That said, it can be overwhelming to undertake the Herculean task of cleaning your entire house in one go.
To make things easier for yourself and your family, consider cleaning some spaces around your home a little bit per day.
Ten to fifteen minutes of daily cleaning can go a long way in helping keep rooms spotless—or at the very least, manageable once the time comes to make a big cleaning effort.
Prioritise cleaning areas around the home that have generally high foot traffic. This includes your bedroom, any other occupied bedrooms, bathrooms, the kitchen, the dining room, and the entryway.
A good rule of thumb of when to clean is to abide by this rule: if you can accomplish it in under five minutes, drop everything and do it!
By concentrating your effort on maintaining these parts of the home daily, you’ll reap the benefits of a clean home and make it easier for your future self to keep your space tidy.
3. Section Each Room for Decluttering
If you want to declutter your place strategically, consider employing a strategy of breaking down your tasks into more manageable goals. This entails classifying each room to clean and declutter as if it’s separate from the rest of the household.
For instance, you can consider getting one garbage bag for random items to throw away from your kitchen, and another garbage bag for items to throw away from your living room toilet area. You can also focus on one specific spot of your house to clean at a given time.
By employing this strategy, you can feel less overwhelmed when decluttering your home. You can also focus on micro-goals and targets of the cleaning process per room more easily, allowing you to be thorough and focused on your general approach.
4. Give Items to Charities or Loved Ones
If you have valuable items that may be of value to someone else, then consider giving them away. Research your local community to see if any local charities are willing to accept item donations. You can gather and collect these donatable items around the house and put them in a box to give to their respective benefactors.
Alternatively, you can also give your valuable belongings to your loved ones. This can be a good way to offload some bulky items that you don’t want to give away entirely (for example, a kayak or a table tennis table).
Giving items to your loved ones can also help encourage them to carry on the legacy of your past hobby or interest, which can be heartwarming in its own special way!
By donating these items to charities or loved ones, you enter a win-win situation. You get to promote cleanliness around your home while simultaneously making another person happy with their shiny, new item.
It also reduces waste in general, promoting a positive and much-needed culture of sustainability.
5. Invest in Quality, Long-Lasting Items
While acquiring new possessions may seem like the antithesis of decluttering, hear us out. Buying durable, high-quality items, even if they cost more than their more affordable counterparts, can lead to a cheaper total product value and a more minimalistic space.
The reason is simple: durable products can last a long time, removing the need to replace or repair products beyond their intended shelf life.
Buying cheap items not only costs you more money in the long run as you constantly replace the item, but it also leads to more clutter around the house with broken or not-as-pristine items.
You should strive to adopt the mindset of investing in quality items. This philosophy applies to all sorts of belongings, such as clothing, furniture, and kitchen appliances.
By doing this, you’re not only going to enjoy more savings, but you can also enjoy the sight of a high-quality item in your household, which can make for a much more pleasant living experience.
6. Sell Your Belongings
Everyone likes the idea of scoring a quick buck. Fortunately for you, decluttering provides an excellent way to find old stuff that you can flip for cash.
Start by identifying items in good condition that you no longer need but that others might find valuable. If you don’t want to give them away (or are unable to), consider selling them through various channels.
A common way to sell is by hosting garage sales. This can help you dispose of items in bulk and also help you make the activity feel more social and fun for the entire family.
Alternatively, and more pragmatically, you can consider selling items on online marketplaces like Facebook, eBay, and Craigslist.
These platforms reach a broad audience and can easily connect you with interested buyers, though it may take a bit more effort on your part to take photos, list, and market these items.
Regardless of how you decide to sell your items, this process can help turn things that you may find worthless into actual cash. In turn, these additional funds can be used for other pressing matters around the house, like higher-quality replacements for current furniture.
7. Gameify The Task of Loading Items
Let’s face it: putting random piles of junk in a box to declutter can be quite a chore. But there are many ways you can make the process much more engaging and interesting.
One way is by challenging yourself to find a fixed number of items (say, 10 or 12 items) and putting them in one of three boxes labeled to donate, to sell, or to dispose.
You can go the distance and even make it a game for you and your family members to play by imposing a time limit and rewarding the winner.
Alternatively, you can set up an event where you invite your friends to help clean out. And if they find anything they may like, they can keep it.
Gamifying the process can turn an otherwise mundane chore into something revitalizing and fun. This can make all the difference in helping you and your loved ones enjoy and become fully committed to the task of decluttering your house.
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