Did you know that the St. Anne’s rummage Sale is coming up in a couple weeks: April 15th? Why not use this as an inspiration to simplify and declutter?
In this week’s post on our St. Anne’s Scoop, we’ll share some tips for decluttering. Hopefully, you find it helpful.
Becomingminimalist.com offers a lot of helpful pointers. To help get you motivated, let’s consider the benefits of having less clutter, namely “less to clean, less to organize, less stress, [and] more money and energy.” Nonetheless, you may feel overwhelmed and not know where to start. It is suggested that a person “give away one item each day.” We have an easier approach: “Box away one item a day.” Then, at the end of a couple of weeks, you can bring the collection of unwanted items over to St. Anne’s for our Rummage Sale. “One person’s junk is another one’s treasure.”
A further idea, which is more of a long-term project, concerns the clothes in your closet. It is suggested that you hang all your clothes with the hangers the reverse way. Then, when you actually take out and wear an item, once it is laundered you will put it back on the hanger the normal way. This way, you can recognize (over a period of time) what clothing you’re actually wearing.
Another pointer for analyzing your belongings when trying to declutter would be to ask yourself: “If I was just buying this now, how much would I pay?”
This article offered a further helpful hint called the “Four-Box Method.” When you set to work, going through your items, have four boxes: trash, give away, keep, or relocate.
Another article offers another helpful tip: “start with just five minutes.” It’s a start, and a little progress is still progress, nonetheless. A little bit at a time will make progress. One technique would be to have a decluttering day.
Another clutter-causing area is paperwork. According to this same source, papers often make up a lot of our clutter. They suggest setting aside a specific place for incoming papers. If things are sprawled here and there, it creates chaos and makes it difficult to feel, or be, organized. It would probably be helpful to create labeled folders for yourself to help categorize the paperwork.
When trying to clean out a drawer, you might try emptying everything out onto a table and organizing it.
An article from “Budget Dumpster” offers other valuable suggestions. When starting to declutter, it would be a good idea to set goals. Making a plan can help lessen frustration. You might make a list of rooms you want to tackle and rank them in reference to how badly cluttered they are. You might also try to set a realistic date for when you hope to have the room decluttered.
Another tip when decluttering is to see if items are actually still working. It makes no sense to leave broken items hanging around your house.