Clear the Clutter (and keep it clear!)

Moving house offers an excellent opportunity to clear the clutter and start afresh in your new home. But even if you aren’t moving, a de-clutter is like a deep clean, it refreshes your home and will make you feel more organised and therefore more relaxed. Studies have proven that people in cluttered homes are more likely to feel depressed, tired and stressed out. Think about it, everything you own takes time. Time to manage, clean, maintain and repair, even to go shopping for it in the first place! And your time is precious, so we have compiled our top tips for decluttering that will give both your home and your wellbeing a new lease of life!

Disposal plan

Before you start, it’s useful to decide how you are going to get rid of the items. Think if there are items you are going to want to sell. There are plenty of places to do this such as EBay, plus more local alternatives like Gumtree, Shpock, and Facebook Marketplace which make life easier as buyers can collect items. Check out any local groups on Facebook as well, as these offer a good place to sell unwanted stuff. Be aware that selling things is a time-consuming process, so as an alternative you could consider storing everything in a spare room or garage as you go along and then taking it all to a car boot sale. Anything you can’t sell, or you end up not having time to sell, can be taken to your local charity shop.

One step at a time

If you aren’t moving house, it doesn’t need to be a drastic, rip off the plaster, do it all at once affair. Try instead getting rid of one or two items per day. In fact a gradual de-cluttering is more likely to make it stick and alter the way you live permanently, as it becomes a part of your life. Indeed, even if you are moving, you could get rid of the items you’re sure of, and tackle everything else once you have moved.

Easy does it

Which leads us nicely into choosing the easy stuff first, the things less likely to have an emotional attachment, the items you know immediately that you can do without. Start small, it will make it easier.

Remember your goals

As you start to move through the house, deeper into your family’s history, it starts to become harder. But remember to focus on your goal of de-cluttered living, and only keep any items that are necessary for your happiness and the functionality of your home. That means those things you never look at and haven’t used for months, maybe years, can go.

Something borrowed

And when you sit there thinking, ‘but what if ten people come to visit, but what if I need this one day…’ then remember that when those rare occasions come up, you can borrow things from other people, making your life much simpler. You don’t need to own something because you used it once in the 90s and you never know when it might come in handy again!

Include the children

It’s not nice to get rid of someone else’s stuff without asking them, and that includes kids. You may have more of a negotiation on your hands, but at least they will feel involved. Often, old toys can be given to cousins or children of friends and they can feel like they’ve done something good when they see the joy it gives to other kids.

Buy less

Once you’ve de-cluttered, you will want to keep it that way. The key to achieving this is to stop the flow of stuff coming into your house. Make a conscious effort to buy less. Your home, and your wellbeing, will thank you for it.

Encourage others

You will also need to encourage your friends and family to not buy you any material gifts. Presents such as experiences, bath salts, food gifts, or even the gift of spending time together are all wonderful and don’t clutter your house! If you start by giving them gifts that are not material, and saying why, they will soon catch on.

There is definitely work to be done here, achieving a clutter-free home is a challenge and keeping it that way even more so. Remember to keep your focus and use the mantra less is more!  You will soon be relaxing in clutter-free bliss.