You know your home will be so much nicer (and look so much bigger) once it’s free from all that clutter. But how do you tackle those endless piles of magazines, letters, CDs and books that accumulate on your tables and work surfaces daily?
I think there are two ways you can tackle this.
What you should do
The first (and arguably the best) approach is to eliminate the source of the clutter by getting really tough on what you actually need to keep and what you can afford to throw away.
‘Less is more’ should be your mantra, so pick up every item, examine it closely and think about whether you really need to keep it. Would your life really be hampered if you didn’t have this thing in your possession? If it’s a document, could you easily get hold of a copy of it if you needed to?
If it’s not something that you really, really need, then it has to go… permanently. This is hardcore decluttering and should only be attempted by the brave. Of course, you may be the type of person who believes a good clear out to be a wonderfully liberating experience, but there are always pitfalls…
Tossing your unwanted things into black binbags willy-nilly and putting them out with the rubbish is the quick and easy solution to your clutter woes, but in these recycling-aware times it’s not really acceptable anymore.
Instead you’ll need to sort your things into endless piles – a pile for selling on eBay, piles for giving away to various friends and family, a pile for the charity shop, another for the recycling bins etc. The problem is that sorting things into piles and then getting those piles to their correct destinations takes a lot of time. And all the while you’ll have that little voice in your head berating you for even thinking of getting shot of that awful paperweight that you were given by your aunty Angela last Christmas. How could you?
What you could do
The second approach is to organise yourself and your home so that all your clutter has somewhere to live. This immediately stops it from being categorised as ‘clutter’ and turns into legitimate stuff that has a perfect right to exist.
However, to make this work long term you have to be super organised and it inevitably means you’ll spend long weekends glued to the IKEA catalogue in search of the perfect storage solution.
It also helps to have a big home with lots of cupboards. Or even better, a loft. Lofts are great, because you can fit mountains of stuff into them that remain happily out of sight and out of mind for years at a time. Lofts are also a curse, because one day that huge space is finally full and you’ll have the mother of all jobs trying to declutter that one!
3 top tips for day to day decluttering
Here’s my top tips for dealing with some of the most common items of day to day clutter according to these two methodologies. Firstly I’ll suggest what you should do, followed by what you could do instead, if you find the first approach a bit too scary.
I’ll leave you to decide which is right for you, but if you’re not sure, I’d suggest starting with what you could do and see how you get on. Often a few hours spent trying to cram all your stuff into your new and wholly inadequate set of storage boxes is enough to make you reach for the black binbags and start to get ruthless…
1. Post
What you should do – tackle all post as soon as it arrives. Does it need dealing with now? If so, take it to your desk and deal with it. Do you really need to keep it once it’s been dealt with? If so file it away, if not throw it away. Investing in a shredder is essential for staying on top of your post. You should be safe to shred any bills that are over a year old.
Would you could do – create post-boxes for each member of your family, so new post has a neat and tidy place to live while it’s waiting to be dealt with, rather than cluttering up the top of the TV or the coffee table. I use a CD storage unit with a couple of compartments, which I’ve turned on its back for this purpose.
2. Magazines, books and CDs
What you should do – get rid of any books you’ve read and don’t have any intentions to read again. As soon as you’ve read a magazine it should go into the pile for recycling. If there’s an article you really want to keep for later reference then cut it out straight away and throw the rest of the magazine in the recycling bin. Take a good look at your CD collection – it’s bound to have some CDs in it that you either have never listened to or would never listen to again. You can create money and space for some new CDs by selling your unwanted ones on eBay.
What you could do – instead of leaving these lying around on surfaces, have an orderly place for them to live. Books should live on the bookshelf, magazines in a rack and CDs in a cabinet or a media rack. If you haven’t got enough of these storage items then look carefully at the space you have available, measure it up and search for the best storage solution for that space.
3. Bits and bobs
What you should do – throw away anything you haven’t got a use for, but looks like it might come in useful one day. Take it from me, it won’t. This includes cracker toys, things that come free with magazines, takeaway menus from restaurants over 3 miles away and promotional leaflets. Anything that has a genuine use should be put in the place where it belongs. For example, elastic bands, paperclips and pens should live in your desk.
What you could do – Allocate one designated place to put all those little bits and bobs that might come in useful one day. I find a box placed out of sight on the shelf under my coffee table is a useful for this or you could allocate one ‘messy’ drawer in your kitchen. The key here is to only have ONE place for these things.
If you need some more inspiration for doing what you should do, then start by reading this article on the Happiness Project website. It explains perfectly that the best approach to decluttering is NOT to get organised!
