9 Quick and Easy Ways to Declutter Your Home • SimpLeigh Organized

I have been helping women regain control of their homes by teaching them how to declutter their spaces for the past 14 years. I have seen firsthand how decluttering improves their overall mood and allows them to feel more in control of their lives. My clients usually feel defeated when we first meet and believe that their situation is hopeless. But, by the end of our first session, they begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Once we complete a room, they are hooked and ready to move on to other spaces in their homes. If you implement these 9 ways to declutter your home, I’m sure they will help you as well!

Why Decluttering Your Home Is Important

Decluttering your home will allow you to take control of your surroundings and improve your emotional well-being. After implementing these 9 ways to declutter your home, you’ll be able to find things faster and feel more productive. As a bonus, decluttering your home will also help you save money because you won’t feel the urge to buy more stuff when you know what you already have.

What Is Clutter?

Clutter is a collection of things that accumulate in an untidy manner in your home. Clutter doesn’t add any value to your life, and it gets in the way of you living your best life. It stops you from feeling productive and slows you down when you need to get things done. Clutter can be obvious as it lies around your house in an untidy way or hiding in those drawers and closets that we are too embarrassed to open.

The good news is that anyone can learn how to declutter their home. In this article, I will share strategies that will help you get started and show you how easy it is to declutter your home. But first, …

What Causes Clutter?

To understand how to get rid of clutter, we must first understand how it got there in the first place. Clutter can build up in our homes for several reasons, and we’ll address a few of them here and offer solutions later in the article.

Shopping too much: Sometimes we buy things we don’t need or have a use for. Once we get it home, we don’t know what to do with it, so we toss it somewhere in our home and forget about it.
Allowing clutter to creep up: Have you ever cleaned your house from top to bottom only to find it a mess a few days later? We’ll discuss why this happens and what you can do about it.
Keeping stuff we no longer want or fit: Sentimental items also fall into this category. It can be hard to let go of something that was given to us, or that holds a special meaning. Keep reading, and I’ll teach you how to preserve the memories without letting the actual items turn into clutter.
Letting the mail pile up: Mail arrives almost every day, and if we don’t have a system in place, it can quickly take over our kitchen counters, dining room tables, and anywhere there is a flat surface. I’ll offer a solution to handle incoming mail later in the article.
Not knowing where to begin: Well, you’ve come to the right place! This article will show you the top 9 ways to declutter your home.

Download a FREE Decluttering Checklist

Declutter your home at your own pace
Check off each task when complete
Know which items still need to be decluttered
Enjoy your decluttered home! 🙂

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9 Ways to Declutter Your Home

If you’ve made it this far, you’re really serious about decluttering your home. Good for you! These tips will point you in the right direction and guide you along the way. After reviewing this list, you’ll see how easy it will be for you to begin to declutter your home.

Tip 1: Make a Plan

Like they say, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Making a plan to declutter your home will keep you on track as you progress on this journey. I’ve created a resource for you to download that will help you get started. Download your FREE decluttering checklist.

Tip 2: Bring Less Into The Home

I advise my clients not to bring anything new into the home while we are decluttering. This includes buying organizing products. It’s best to declutter everything first to see what you already have and take notes on what organizing products you’ll need later. My clients are always surprised to learn that they already own many of the organizing items we planned to shop for. They were just buried in clutter!

Tip 3: Start Small When Decluttering

The best way to motivate yourself to declutter your home is to start small. Select a bathroom drawer, small closet, or kitchen cabinet to declutter. Once you accomplish this small feat, you’ll feel inspired to move on to other spaces. Keep working on those small spaces, and eventually, you’ll have the entire room decluttered!

Tip 4: Declutter in Short Bursts

Decluttering your home does not need to take all day or weekend. You can easily get it done in a few minutes each day. I recommend setting a timer for 30 minutes to tackle one of those small spaces previously mentioned and have at it! You’ll be surprised how much you can get done in 30 minutes.

Tip 5: Have Sorting Boxes Ready to Go

Make sure you have a few boxes at your disposal before you begin to declutter your home. Label the boxes: Move, Donate, and Keep. While decluttering, if you find items that belong elsewhere in the home, place them in the Move box. When your 30-minute session is up, take the box with you and put those items where they belong.

Place anything you no longer want or need into the Donate box. If the box is full at the end of your session, put it right in your car to drop off the next time you go out. If the box is not full, place it in a location that is out of sight until your next decluttering session. Placing it out of sight will keep you from second-guessing your choices and prevent you from taking some things out.

The items you wish to keep but don’t need to display in your home can go in the Keep box. This box can be for old t-shirts, sentimental items, photos, and anything else you’d like to keep for remembrance. Make sure you label the box with the contents so you know where to find them in the future. Store this box in the attic, storage room, the bottom of a closet, or the garage.

Contrary to popular belief, professional organizers will not make you get rid of everything you own! We just help you find a way to organize them.

Tip 6: Deal with Mail Clutter

I see mail clutter in most homes I declutter, and there is a very simple fix for it. When decluttering your home, think about where the mail enters your home and develop a plan to deal with it before it gets out of hand.

My suggestion is to create a landing station. Have a shredder, trash can, and 2 trays located where you first bring the mail in. Immediately toss junk mail and shred any mail with sensitive information. One of the trays should be labeled as Bills and the other one as To Do. Designate a time during the month to go through each tray and clean them out.

I usually advise my clients to clean out each tray on the first and fifteenth days of the month to stay on top of things. You can enter these dates directly into your calendar so you can have a reminder.

Tip 7: Create a Place for Everything

When you are decluttering your home, the best way to organize the things you wish to keep is to store them where you will actually use them. This will help you and your family put them back where they belong. Try storing cleaning supplies in each bathroom, toys in multiple rooms, all backpacks, coats, and outerwear in the closet near the exit door. Being able to put things back without having to leave the room will do wonders for keeping your house decluttered.

Tip 8: Perform Daily Pick-Ups

You don’t want to spend all this time decluttering your home only to see it a disorganized mess a few days later. The best way to stay on top of decluttering is to set aside about 5 minutes at the end of the day to tidy up and get ready for the next day.

Tip 9: Bookmark These Sites For Later

I don’t expect you to remember everything you read in this article or immediately begin implementing them. I suggest that you bookmark these articles I have written to help you along your decluttering journey. This way, you can refer to them as needed. Remember that I’m always an e-mail away if you have questions or need some motivation! 🙂

The Last Thing You Need to Know About Decluttering

Hopefully, this article has provided you with enough information and motivation to get started. Just remember that decluttering your home is a slow-moving process. It’s not something you do all at once and then forget about. You’ll have to stay on top of things so they don’t get out of hand. The best part is that it doesn’t take much to keep your home decluttered. A few minutes of tidying up each day is all you need, and once you learn how to get your family on board, living in a decluttered home will be a breeze!

Let me know in the comments what your biggest struggle is with decluttering your home. Which area of your home are you going to declutter first? Don’t forget to download your free decluttering checklist to help you get started!