Welcome to my 5 week Declutter Your Home Series!

– WEEK 1 – 

Each week I will be showing up to serve you with a new blog post that will include all of the tools and encouragement you need to declutter & simplify common problem areas in your home.

• Week 1: How to Declutter Effectively
• Week 2: How to Declutter Clothing
• Week 3: How to Declutter Paper
• Week 4: How to Declutter Toys
• Week 5: How to Create a Simple Maintenance Routine

My goal is that by the end of March, if you choose to accept, you will find yourself feeling much less overwhelmed and way more organized and ready to embrace a fresh new season (hello Spring) in your simplified and organized home!

As always, feel free to utilize the tips that work for you and let go of the rest!

How to Declutter Effectively: Embracing an Organizer’s Mindset

1. Less is more

Let’s begin by defining the term, clutter.

Clutter: to fill or cover with scattered or disordered things that impede movement or reduce effectiveness. (Meriam-Webster)

Have you ever felt like you are drowning in a sea of things and don’t know how to make sense of it all? Simple tasks like getting dressed in the morning or making dinner suddenly become complicated and time consuming when the items we need to complete the task have been misplaced. The feelings of overwhelm that come from living in a cluttered home can be devastating to our overall sense of well being. But, I’m here to tell you that there is HOPE in even the most hopeless of situations.

It starts with the realization that less is more when it comes to choosing what items we want to keep in our homes.

Here’s what begins to happen to our relationship with things when we take action and declutter:

• Greater value is placed on the items we choose to keep
• Everything has a purpose
• Everything has a place
• Less stuff = less to manage = less overwhelm

2. The power of 10 minutes

One of the most common excuses for living with clutter is that “we don’t have the time to tackle the mess.” We already feel like we are drowning with the non-negotiable day to day tasks and cannot imagine setting aside hours upon hours of our precious time to put toward decluttering.

Here’s the thing, everyone has 10 minutes in their day that they can commit to decluttering. I’m not asking you to set aside hours, just 10 minutes! You will be surprised at the difference you can make in such a short period of time. If at the end of the first 10 minute power block you feel like you can keep going, set your timer for another 10 minutes! Otherwise, come back to it the next day.

Here’s how a 10 minute decluttering power block works:

• Choose one space that you will declutter (it could be a counter top or a specific room)
• Grab a garbage bag, recycling bag and an empty bin
• Set a timer for 10 minutes (optional: throw on your favourite tunes!)
• Sweep the area and get rid of all recycling & garbage = items that are broken, missing pieces, or no longer work
• Items that do not belong in the space are placed in the bin and re-homed after the 10 minutes are done
• Use this criteria to choose what you will keep: if it is necessary, your favourite, or the best if there are multiples

3. Releasing items with joy

It’s common to feel guilty when you decide to let an item go. But, once you recognize that the items in our homes serve a purpose for a time (some last longer than others) you will soon begin to release items that no longer serve you, with joy! Here are some of the things you can say as you release items that you no longer want or need:

• Thank you for serving me
• I’m thankful for the thoughtful gesture (when you release a gift that was given to you)
• Thank you for teaching me something new
• Thank you for bringing me joy

4. A Decluttered Home = A Happy, Healthy Home

Decluttering has a positive impact on everyone living in the home. A clean, clutter free environment reduces anxiety and evokes feelings of peace and well being. When parents take the leap toward a more simplified life, their kids reap the benefits and get on board too!

Recently, I decided to remove approximately 80% of the toys in my girls’ playroom. One day after they had been tucked into bed, I took the toys that they had not played with in a long time and placed them in a box in my basement. Over the course of the next month I noticed something profound. My girls were spending MORE time in the playroom and were playing independently for LONGER periods of time and only asked where 1 of the items were that I had packed away a few weeks into my little experiment. I retrieved that one item and then proceeded to donate or sell the rest! The lack of clutter created the opportunity for more creative play!

I do not always recommend decluttering “behind your child’s back” so to say. Begin to have healthy conversations around the things in your home. Tell your child that you will be going into their room with them to declutter. Set your timer for 10 minutes and turn on some upbeat music! Ask your child to help you find all of the garbage in the room and throw it in the bag! When deciding what to keep, ask your child if the item they are holding brings them joy or is something they use often. Let them decide! You will be surprised at how quickly your child will begin to discern what is worth keeping and what they are ready to let go of. Tell them that if something is important to them it needs to be treated with value and have a home to live in.   

5. Adopt simple routines to keep the clutter away

How many times have you put your heart and soul into getting a space in order in your home to find that it is completely out of control again in a few weeks or even a few days? My go-to maintenance routines will keep your home decluttered for the long haul:

• Make sure that the items you choose to keep have a home (contain like items together)
• Teach your children to clean up before starting something new (this skill requires practice and positive reinforcement)
• Invest in a pretty basket that sits at the bottom of your stairs to collect items that need to be put back upstairs  
• Do a 10 minute clean sweep each night before you head to bed | re-home the items in the basket (see above)
• When you welcome something new, release something (this works especially well for toys & clothes)

Here’s to creating happy, healthy, decluttered homes one step at a time! I’m rooting for ya!

Head here to read the next post: How to Declutter Clothing

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If you use any of my suggestions in your home, I’d love to see your progress! Please share your decluttering projects with the OWK community by using the hashtag: #owkdeclutteredhome