1. DETERMINE HOW MUCH TIME YOU HAVE
As the saying goes, ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’. This is true when it comes to organizing your home. Lilian Chiu, Professional Organizer and Owner of Peony Professional Organizing suggests ‘to avoid making more mess in the long-run, figure out how much time you have to declutter before picking the space to work on. Recognize that you'll encounter decision fatigue, and set up a system to make it easier to declutter’.
2. HAVE A GOAL IN MIND
Don’t make the mistake of going into decluttering blind. It can sometimes feel like a bit of a minefield, so having a clear goal at the forefront of your mind will help you stay focused.
3. USE POST-IT NOTES
If you work best with visuals, using some sort of stationery to help you organize can help you avoid making more mess in the long run. Lilian recommends to ‘make use of post-it notes to set up a system as you declutter, making piles for donation and trash while putting back the items you want to keep’. It's an especially useful trick for how to declutter clothes.
4. DECIDE ON A STORAGE PLAN
Before you start putting things into piles, decide how you’re going to store them and what space you have available. There is no point creating a massive bundle of a certain type of item then not having the right place to store it all. Shara Kay from SK Organizing explains that ‘when putting items away, store “like with like” so you only have to remember where you keep the entire category, not the individual item. Where possible, label shelves, drawers and baskets to help other household members learn and maintain the system’. Making sure other people in your home are aware of the new storage plan that you’ve put together is important. This will put a stop to any potential arguments and will avoid your home becoming cluttered again.
5. REMEMBER THAT IT LOOKS WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER
Learn to keep your cool and trust the process! Like most home projects, decluttering can make your space look worse before it can begin to look better. Try not to get overwhelmed and go with the flow. Shara insists that ‘decluttering is a process! If you’re pulling things out of drawers, cabinets and doing closet organization, your space will likely look worse before it looks better. Be mindful about not pulling out more than you can put away the same day and try breaking down your project into realistic chunks’.