Consider these amazing facts:
- There are 300,000 items in the average home.
- One quarter of people with two-car garages don’t have room to park their cars inside them.
- The average 10-year-old has 238 toys but plays with just 12.
- The average woman owns 30 outfits — a century ago that was just nine.
The message? Our homes are packed to the rafters with a whole lot of stuff! Yet most of us feel so overwhelmed at the prospect of tackling our bad case of clutteritis that we pretend the problem simply doesn’t exist.
But, with a new year on its way, maybe it’s time to clean up our mess. Right? Here are four simple ways to start decluttering right now:
- Take 30: Attempting to declutter your entire home is too big a mountain to climb. Start in one place, like your bathroom, and dive in for 30 minutes. Pull everything out of your medicine cabinet and on to the counter, throw out any expired prescriptions, ditch almost empty bottles of moisturizer or perfume or any items you haven’t used in over six months. Wipe down the empty cabinet and re-place your selected items. Sit on the floor, and repeat for the cabinet under the sink. There, that isn’t so hard, is it? If you’re excited and inspired, move on to the drawers or closet in your bedroom. Or tackle the pile of newspapers or magazines in the den. If you’re exhausted, set a reminder for next week and take on one room or closet at a time.
- Bag it and take 5: Grab two big trash bags and prowl around. Fill one with old newspapers and magazines, boxes and wrappers, used candles, orphan mitts and socks, and items that, let’s face it, you’re never going to use again. Fill the other with five toys your kids don’t play with anymore, five articles of clothing you don’t wear anymore, five books, CDs or DVDs you’ll never read, listen to or watch anymore and bring this bag to Goodwill or any nearby charity that accepts used items.
- Super bowl: No, this has nothing to do with men in helmets and tight pants. Set down a medium sized bowl wherever you enter your home and designate it as the receptacle for keys, sunglasses, gloves, wallets and loose change. Your days of dropping sundry items throughout the house are over!
- Teachable moment: If you’re a parent, enlist your kids. Instruct them to spot items of theirs scattered throughout the home — shoes, Game Boy or Nintendo, smartphone, books, clothing, half-eaten snacks, unidentifiable items — and take them to their rooms, or the kitchen or laundry, as the case may be. And warn them that, from now on, if it’s not in their room within 24 hours it disappears forever!
What decluttering tips work best — or worst — for you? Please share your ideas in the Shop Talk Blog community forum!
Did you know: The Ikea effect
Even as the price of furniture has dropped, we’re spending more on more of it. Yet the rate at which we’re throwing it out has risen only 1/13 as fast — in other words, we’re just hoarding it. (Source)
mine is in total disarray , no idea were anything is. look for hours. I need my mother to organize it for me and then I start all over. BUMMER
I am a recovering packrat. Every summer I like going to garage sales and buying clothes for $3 or less. After 8-10 years of this, my closet was overflowing and I started to feel overwhelmed. I called a couple friends and asked if they would like to join together durung the city wide garage sale with me since I have a 2 stall gagrage in town. The first year I gave up all my clothes from high school that I’d never fit in again. Us ladies all agreeded if we didn’t want take it home, we would pack a vehicle to go to the thrift store at the end of the day. Whatever didn’t sell, most of it went to the thrift store. The next spring, since all my clothes fit, I decided to part with clothes I hadn’t worn in 3 years. Got rid of many pants, shirts, and jackets that year. This last spring I did my best to get rid of anything I hadn’t worn in 1 year. That was tough…I did keep a few extra things, but glad to say all my clothes fit easy enough to find in a sliding 2 door closet with shelves above and a dresser for socks, underwear, pajamas, and exercise clothes. Before starting this process, I used to have 3 closets full and were packed, hard to see.
I think I need to try this in my house. All to often I here where are my keys? Did you see my shoes? Do you think one of the little kids may have gotten ahold of hat? It’s a constant struggle and though most of the time the I’ve move the keys to the key rack or the shoes to the hall where they should be but there’s still days that I look around and think I would love to downsize and move into a smaller house but just the thought of going through everything is overwhelming
I have gotten rid of a lot of stuff in the past 2 years by selling my unwanted items on EBay and have made almost 3,000.00. It’s amazing what people buy. If you don’t need it, or want it, sell,it! You will,have extra cash for whatever you want. Save, travel, buy a new house!
I have started to declutter by using my offerup app on my phone. I sell items on a regular basis and get some extra $$ at the same time.
I try to take 3 things out of my closet or dresser every week. I keep a donation box in the closet and when I get 3 full boxes I drop them off for donation. I drop craft items and fabric and books off to the senior center every couple of months. They really appreciate it and it’s out of my house!
I’ve been telling my husband that “kaotic clutter” is not an interior design style!
5 items at a time sounds do-able and a lot less overwhelming. Thanks for the kick-in-the-butt encouragement : ) Happy New Year, everyone!
In a nutshell: “CHIP AWAY AT IT!” This has always been my strategy: a little at a time and you’ll find that over time…the job gets done. Using this approach regularly keeps the clutter in check.
Sit on the floor to clean out a cabinet? At my age? Who’s going to help me back up?
I’m with you girl and I haven’t retired yet! Our needs and abilities to get things done changes over the course of our lifetimes. Child, young adult, marriage, young children in the home, physical limitations, injuries, illness, etc.
If you check Charitable Organizations, you find out that the owner of Goodwill is a millionaire because he never pays for his product, barely gives minimum wage, and is increasing his fortune. You can also find out that the head of The Salvation Army gets frugal compensation and this is true of similar groups pf this type.
As for me, I won’t give ANYTHING to the Goodwill and FYI anyone else I speak with about it.
I am in the process of decluttering and you hit the nail on the head about a place for everything and EVERYTHING in its place is the best advice anyone can be given but it is best if the rule is started when you are in the process of doing the decluttering . Now if I could only get everyone in the house to do it.
This makes you really think what you have inside your house or apartment that you really need to get rid of.
Tell me only where you leave and what you have inside for all this time if have get to if for prize or and how much the two garage . Gimme low iLife in Florida Deland if is close to here I can clean this and do the favor for free only I need the gas. I
I’m 80+. It becomes not “can I use it?”but will I ever really use it again? Let It GO on to The Next Guy.As memory fails, it still manages to use what we need when we need it.
I de clutter my home every 3 months. I do not let things get piled up for to long. I do not like clutter. So, I tell the family, if you want to keep it put it away in a box or hang it up, I will throw it out.
As to furniture, I have good solid Ethan Allen furniture and would never give it up to buy cheaply made new furniture. I don’t care if the furniture retailers want me to buy new furniture so they can make more money. If they are not selling enough, maybe there are too many stores but that’s not my problem. You should be encouraging people to use what they have and not create more waste and hyper-consumerism!
EVERYTHING piles up on my dining room table, I don’t know what to keep & what to get rid of. I need help. Thank you very much.
When you clean up anything, especially your house, it always makes you feel good and puts you in a good mood. The same goes for your vehicle. It always seems like it runs better after a good cleaning. Using your method is incentive to get everything clean, as I know I will feel better once it’s all done!
Everyday I say to myself, “Self, today you’re going to do some heavy decluttering, downsizing and throwing/giving away”. But I have found that when I clean out a closet, I begin placing things back in the closet and made the closet more neat. Therefore I have just defeated the purpose of “decluttering”. I love clothes and shoes and I suppose I think I just can’t “live” without this or that garment. Yet, when I find something that I discard then the thought of that item/object is out of my thoughts of “wish I hadn’t do away with that…..”. So I s’pose the old cliche is right “out-of-sight-out-of-mind”. Maybe I’ll learn to not clutter someday.