Declutter your Home / Where to Start - Part 2

Where to Start - Part 2

Knick knacks

Any knick knacks that you have lying around your bedroom could contribute to it looking like something out of a disaster zone.

If you truly want all of them in your bedroom, then organize them into some semblance of order.

This means putting things either upright, or dusting things off. Dust can make even the most amazing piece of furniture look like mere clutter.

Anything that you don’t actively need or want, store away somewhere you can get to it.

Bedside table

Most of these items get recycled anyway as you do need to use them on a daily basis, but sometimes, just sometimes you will find that clutter starts to build up and that’s when you find yourself inundated by the dust bunnies.

If you use your bedside table as the place where you store all the little items like keys and earrings and the like, then keep a small tray or receptacle on the table top.

This will help to organize things more efficiently and you will find that if you have something to put it into, that you will more readily do so. This makes it that much easier for you to find things in the morning.

Your Closets

I decided to give "closets" a separate section of its own. Yes, they do belong in the bedroom section but they also belong in the hallway, under the stairs, in the basement, and in the den.

Basically just about anywhere that you can think of you will find some sort of closet that needs looking into.

The various closets that you can find includes,

· Your bedroom closet – this will have the most junk and the least properly organized space.

· Your kids’ closets – if you’re kids are still very young, these aren’t as bad as your closest. Watch out if they’re in their teens however!

· The linen closet – this will probably be the most organized closet in your home.

· Your bathroom closets – again probably one of the messiest places in your house. I have covered this specifically in the bathroom section.

· Extra closets – there’s really no telling what’s inside of these, you will have to proceed with caution here as well.

How to deal with them

This can be a tricky one, and it depends to a very large extent which closet you’re tackling. So to make my life simpler, I have placed in no particular order the things that you will want to look into, in your myriad closets and cupboards.

Note that these techniques can be applied to any dark space which you have stuffed in haphazardly with clutter!

First
Just as you did with your bedroom, go armed and waiting. You never know what lurks in there.

Next
Take your courage into your hands and empty the closet. To do this you might need to step into close proximity of whatever might be lurking inside.

You will also need to have some kind of floor space, or bed or table space designated for you to be able to just dump out the entire contents

It could last for days
Be prepared for this eventuality. Depending on the size of the closet, the amount of clutter you have in there and how much time you are willing to spend on this project for a day, it can take more than one day.

In this case you need to be prepared to leave everything lying around outside while you go through and finish the closet decluttering process systematically.

This is alright with your clutter bug’s heart, but make sure that your family members can first live with it. If not, find an alternative.

Get down and dirty
There’s nothing for it I’m afraid. You will need to get your hands dirty if you want to declutter your closets.

So like I said, take everything out of the closet first and foremost. At this point it doesn’t matter about making piles, but if you can do that at the same time, make separate piles of everything.

What you’re really aiming for here is to get a shot at the interior of the closet itself. When you get inside you can then clean it out thoroughly.

This way as you sort out your clothes and things you can out them away again.

Ready, steady, sort out!
This is it, it’s crunch time again. You have come to the part of your decluttering program where you need to ruthlessly squash any sentimentality you might feel and get rid of most of the things you have no need of.

I keep saying this, but the fact of the matter is that I can’t say this often enough. Get rid of what you don’t need, and make room for the things that you do use.

This is the part that’s going to take the longest so be prepared for it. Have four bins or boxes or bags lined up and ready for you to dump things into.

You should ideally label them as,

· Keep

· Throw

· Unsure

· Give Away

The “throw” and the “give away” boxes should also get their fair share of things so don’t let the “keep” box hoard everything.

Sort through everything with a ruthlessness that would have impressed Hitler and give no quarter.

If you haven’t worn it in a few years, or you don’t fit into it, throw it away. If it’s old and ratty and has no sentimental value whatsoever then throw it away.

You must surely be getting the drift by now. If it’s junk then throw it away!

And sort them again
Why would you want to sort them again? For the simple reason that now that you have the bulk of what you want and don’t want sorted out, you will now need to put back the things that you do want.

You can just dump them in, in any old way if you really want to, but since you went to all that trouble to clean and sort out your closets, it only makes sense to sort them out some more before you put them away again.

· To that extent, you will want to sort things out according to what they are. For example, if it’s clothes you can sort them out by color, skirts and blouse etc., most worn, least worn, and any other combination that you can think of.

If you get the urge you can even coordinate the pieces to match now, so that you don’t have to go looking around later.

· You can do the same with your shoes, i.e. heels and flats, dressy, boots, rough wear, sandals. Whatever system that you go by is fine.

And if you find that you have too many shoes, you can even store the better, dressier shoes in specially bought shoeboxes.

These look nothing like the shoeboxes which you get with your shoes from the store, they are instead funkier and can be found and bought in a color to suit your tastes.

· Linens are the next item on the list, and can present you with a number of options from which to choose for your sorting efforts.

You can color coordinate, keep them in sets, keep the sheet, and the covers and cases all in their own separate files, or you can sort them out by the oldest to the newest.

· Books can be sorted out either alphabetically, or if you want, you can even color code them. It depends on how often you read and if you recognize the books by the color of their spine!

Of course if your books are all of various subjects and varying different authors then it won’t matter too much whether you color code it or arrange them in some other way.

· CD’s and DVD’s and things I generally like to put any which way because I see them so much, but other than that you have the option of grouping them alphabetically according to title, grouping them by genre, or even grouping them by the year in which they were released.

As you can see just about anything and everything can be grouped together. It just needs a little time and innovation on your part to get it done.
Your Office /Den

This is another great place for clutter to build up and you need to be extra vigilant not to let it take over your life. This is especially true if you work from home.

The very last thing you will want to do is to misplace your clients’ files and have to do a frantic search for them at the eleventh hour. If it’s paperwork you’re worried about, then may I suggest reading the section I wrote on “Paperwork”.

And if it’s your mail you’re worried about, then go to the section entitled, “Sort out your mail – get to the source”. It might not deal with all your problems but it is a start.

For everything else, go through this room much the same as you did for the other rooms in your home. With ruthlessness and a hardened heart. If you don’t need it throw it away.

However, since there might actually be important things in this particular room you might want to proceed with a little more caution than you otherwise would.

To become organized and get your office or den more efficient, it’s best if you can get everything that you use most often into one area.

This means that most of the small things that you use should be organized in and around your table area.

The larger things like filing cabinets for instance should be kept in manner that is easy to get to and that you will find is the most logical for you.

Wherever you can, hug the walls with the filing cabinets and other shelves. This will create more space for you to work in give you a light and airy working environment.

That is, unless you want to divide the room to make into two different functional spaces or something along those scales.

And since this is an office, arranging things so that you make the most of the natural light will work wonders and any clients you bring in won’t be blinded by a poorly maintained office.

Your Bathroom

This is the other place where you can get into a lot of trouble. You won’t necessarily find that much clutter here as you do tend to clean it out more often than the other rooms.

If you go anywhere near the counter tops or the bathroom cabinets however, you might find yourself in for more of a shock than you realized.

Again, the only way to deal with this is to be ruthless about it. Get your tools ready and prepare to bin things.

If anything looks a different color than what you bought it as, if anything has changed consistency, i.e. it’s runny where it should be hard and vice versa, if the ingredients have separated, and if it’s way over the use by deadline, then throw it out.

If you think about it, it’s a miracle that you managed to survive in here without succumbing to illness, especially if you used any of that stuff without looking twice.

If you have a hamper in your bathroom, then you need to make sure that the clothes go into the hamper, not around it, or even on it, but into it. And make sure that your family knows and understands this as well.

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Where to Start - Part 2

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