Declutter Your Home in 3 Easy Steps
Decluttering your home doesn’t just help it look better, it can help clear your mind too. If you have been spending extra time at home lately, you may be noticing your ‘stuff’ more and it may be frustrating you. Decluttering your home often falls into the ‘too hard’ basket, but, lucky for us, Organisation Expert Bridget Johns shares her simple tips to get started.
1. Flip Your Mindset
Decluttering is an empowering process and I challenge people to flip their mindset from thinking they are losing things, to focusing on the fact they are gaining something more precious than “stuff”. They are gaining a sense of calm and joy when they walk into their home.
Decluttering isn’t about chucking everything away. It’s about gaining space so you can display and use the items that bring you joy. Many people store things away in cupboards so they can use them for special occasions that often never come around.
For example, my husband and I were given a beautiful 16 person cutlery set as an engagement present. It came in a massive box and, for years, it lived on the top of our wardrobe and was only brought out for Christmas. Seven years ago, we moved into our farmhouse. I noticed the cutlery box and thought “We have a toddler and I’m pregnant. We’re not going to be having any fancy dinner parties for a long time. Let’s use the beautiful cutlery every day” - and we have from that day forward! Get those beautiful items out of those cupboards and use them!
If something is beautiful or important enough to keep, I encourage you to display them. Both of my Grandmothers have passed away and I have beautiful memories from my childhood of them both wearing clip-on earrings. When they passed away, as we decluttered their homes, I was drawn to them. While I will never wear the earrings, I wanted to keep them. I decided to clip the earrings onto the coat hangers in my wardrobe. Every morning when I get dressed I am reminded of my grandmothers.
2. Just Start
Sometimes the thought of what you have to do is much worse than actually doing it. Set yourself a goal of spending 1% of your day decluttering your home. 1% of your day is 14.4 minutes. I bet if you look at the screen time feature on your iPhone, you are spending a lot more than 1% of your day mindlessly scrolling social media.
I challenge you to pick a room in your home and commit to spending 15 minutes decluttering that room for one week. If you just start from today, in a week’s time you will have spent 105 minutes making a room feel and function better (and I bet you won’t have missed anything on social media).
3. Track Your Progress
When something feels insurmountable, there is power in taking baby steps and recording your progress. Take before, during and after photos! Sometimes it might feel like, no matter how much you remove or clean a space (especially paper clutter in the office) you are getting nowhere. But, you might be surprised looking back at how far you have come, motivating you to keep going.
Words: Bridget Johns
Bridget is a declutter coach, life organiser and the founder of Be Simply Free. For more tips to start your decluttering journey visit www.besimplyfree.com.au
Originally published in Connected Caregiving Winter 2022
