Most of us live with some amount of clutter. The longer you live in a home and the larger your family, the more likely it is that clutter will accumulate. Messy living spaces contribute to stress and anxiety. This is a great reason to declutter your home.
Declutter Your Home to Reduce Stress
Deal with Items Now
Are you the type of person who saves newspapers and magazines with the intent of reading them later, only to find that later never arrives? Give yourself a time limit for reading a publication and don’t hold on to magazines for more than 2 months.
Set a specific time to catch up on your reading. It could be with your morning coffee or a few minutes every evening after work. When you have finished reading, donate the magazines to your local library and recycle the newspapers. To help prevent clutter around the house, subscribe to your favorite magazine or newspaper online.
Use It or Lose It
To declutter your junk drawers, empty the contents into bins and then as you use the items, return them back to the drawer. Anything that hasn’t been used within a few months should be donated or thrown away.
Go Digital to Declutter Your Home
Going digital is a great solution for most types of paperwork. Request that utility companies bill you online. Save important documents to your computer or an external hard drive. All you need is a scanner. Scan in your documents and shred the paper copies. Keep a backup of important files either via the cloud or an external hard drive.
To Make Decluttering Easier
If you can set aside time to clean, you can accomplish a lot in a day or a weekend. Use these tips to easily declutter your home.
- Donate or throw away one item every day to clear out hundreds of items each year. If this feels too easy, try to donate two things daily.
- Hang all your clothing with the hanger reversed. Switch the hanger when you wear an item to show how much of your wardrobe is unused and donate clothes you don’t wear.
- Look for 12 items to donate and 12 to throw away. Put them in separate bins and get rid of 24 items easily.
- Working through each room of your house, place each item in one of four boxes: keep, trash, donate, and relocate. Do this with every item, room by room to remind yourself how much stuff you own and how much you can do without.
Declutter Your Home Every Day
Although you can spend the weekends decluttering, things will accumulate if you don’t actively make an effort to control it. If you have a hard time knowing what to let go of, put your ‘maybe’ items in a separate bin. If you haven’t used the item in a few month’s time, you’ll know it’s okay to donate it and clear more clutter out of your house.
Gulf Sand Home Inspection offers home inspection services in Sarasota, Bradenton, and North Port, Florida. Contact us to request an appointment.