There is a lot going on in our world right now. I’ve been experiencing more anxiety than normal and I’m guessing many of you are as well. One of the best things for me to do when I find myself feeling anxious is to get busy! Let’s get some of those to-do list projects done. One of mine is to declutter and organize my home.
If you’ve done any research you know that the golden rule of decluttering and organizing your stuff is to create three categories for you belongings as you organize your home.
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- Things to keep
- Things to toss
- Things to give away or sell
There are a few things I’ve been doing to help makes these steps easier.
1. It helps to break down the ‘keep’ pile into smaller parts. It can be ‘Keep’ because I love it and it is definitely staying in my house. You can also have a ‘Keep’ because someone else I live with loves it. And a ‘Keep’ because it’s sentimental or difficult to get rid of right now so I’ll come back later and deal with it.
Make sure you keep what you love. If you don’t love it, maybe there is someone else who will. I want my house to be full of items that make me happy, that I enjoy looking at, or that I actually use. So those are the criteria I use when deciding to keep something.
I know Marie Kondo wants you to hold things and ask yourself if it brings you joy, but that didn’t necessarily work for me. Some stuff doesn’t bring me joy but I need it! The whole joy thing just didn’t translate for me, but the idea was good so I went from there. I don’t ‘feel joy’ when holding my pots and pans, but I definitely need them, so they stayed. Same with my vacuum cleaner, dusting cloths, and laundry detergent.
I find that I can often get stalled and lose motivation over sentimental stuff. If that’s happening for you as well, just set it aside and keep going. You can go back to that stuff later when you’ve made more progress and are feeling proud of all of your accomplishments.
2. Look at the big picture. For me, it is having a home that feels more comfortable. One with less clutter and mess will help me feel less anxious at home. So if I get stuck on an item, I just set it aside or put it back where it was and move on. No matter what, there will be progress.
3. Another key thing to remember in decluttering and organizing is that it is a continual process. Often I find myself thinking it was a one-and-done thing. I believed I’d go through the house, room to room decluttering and organizing every last inch, and voila, at the end I’d have my perfect home. Hello, unrealistic expectations! Obviously, that didn’t work. With my perfectionist brain mixed with a hectic life with littles I was quickly becoming overwhelmed and giving up.
4. When creating your ‘Toss’ pile, plan to get rid of it immediately. As soon as your trash bag is full head to the garbage. You want that stuff out of sight so you can see how much progress you’re making.
5. Just like your ‘Toss’ pile, you want your giveaway pile out of sight, too. After all your hard work you don’t want to be tempted to go back through that stuff. Put it in bags or boxes, tie them up, and get them out of your line of sight. If you can’t drop them off right away, put them in your trunk, or set them in your garage so they are all ready to go.
6. Only sell the big stuff that will make you some decent money. You don’t want to waste your time and motivation on photographing, listing and keeping up with online sales of things that aren’t going to yield you a good return on your time. Utilize the motivation you feel to complete your decluttering mission. *You may even want to wait until you’ve finished decluttering to sell your items so you can keep the minimizing mindset going.
