Decluttering your home feels like one of the biggest dreaded things that you have to do at least once a year. Pulling things out of the back of drawers you stuffed away last year so you wouldn’t have to look at it, but you don’t want to get rid of it either. My theory is if you haven’t looked at it in six months or more, bin it now.
I’m going to start with the kitchen. We all know what they can be like. Loads of sauce pan lids with no saucepans to actually put them on, random pieces out of a set that have managed to be the last plate or mug you haven’t smashed and even chipped glasses. These take up loads of room that could, and should be put to better use with something else that you actually do use. Bin all these useless things in your kitchen. It is time to declutter, don’t think that I might use this in five years or this might be useful if I ever planned a party because it won’t. These are all just lies we tell ourselves to make us feel less guilty about hoarding and you’ll hate yourself for it.
There is no point keeping hundreds of Halloween or Christmas napkins in the house, stored away in the back of a cupboard that you will definitely forget about. When it comes to that time of year you will see them in your local supermarket for £1 and buy them again anyway. Declutter them and throw them away.
It’s also pointless to keep a drawer with fifty odd towels in it. You need about ten for your kitchen, and even then that will do Christmas when you are cooking a big family dinner. Think about it this way, when you’re done with one towel, you take the next one out of the drawer and put the used one into the wash. It’s out again and put in the same towel drawer in a few days again. I bet you have towels in that drawer that you have never used, or used only once and you find it’s the same towels being used all the time. Invest in some sensible storage solutions for your kitchen; it will certainly save you time and energy when looking for things.
The second room you should declutter is the bedroom, especially your wardrobe. The first thing I do when changing seasons is putting my past season clothes into a suitcase. Coming into the summer, I put all woolly jumpers and big coats into a suitcase and store them there until winter is coming back again. Anything you think you wore too much and has got old or washed out looking, bin it, don’t store it. This leaves lots of room in your wardrobe for clothes for the incoming season and also keeps it very organised. Coming back into the winter, it also shows you what you need to buy for the season.
One thing you can do to declutter your bedroom is get storage boxes and put shoes etc in them. This can be stored easily at the top of the wardrobe or alternatively on the floor. It keeps shoes together and means you won’t spend half an hour looking for your other shoe before you go to leave the house in the morning.
The best advice I can give for decluttering is to take it one room at a time and start in one area of that room. If you pull everything out of everywhere at the start, it makes it seem as there is no end and you will get frustrated just looking at it. You will not want to do anything except cry because you’ve just realised how much you have hoarded and you’ll end up doing no decluttering.
So take your time, only do three hours max in one day and if you don’t need it, don’t buy it.
