Dealing With A Messy House – First Steps To Getting It Organized

Let’s face it: your home or office didn’t reach its current level of clutter in just a few days. It will take more than a day to get your home cleared out and organized so you can enjoy living in it. Don’t plan on getting the whole project finished at once.

How to Declutter Your House in the Time You Have

But you can make visible progress on cleaning up, even if you have a lot to do and not much time to do it in.  You will learn how to fit your decluttering to the time you have in this article.

Where Should You Start Decluttering?

What should you tackle first? Should you declutter your office? Declutter your kitchen? Give your closets a makeover?

The right place to begin is the place where the mess causes you the most stress. The spot in question could be your kitchen, your bedroom, garage, office, workshop — any room in the house. Just starting to get rid of the clutter will make a big change in how the room feels.

Declutter Storage Areas First

Clearing out closets, drawers, shelves, and cupboards helps make room for you to put away the things you have out in the rest of the room. Most likely you have a fair number of things stored away that haven’t been used in a long time and can be disposed of for good. It’s good to begin decluttering in storage spaces for both reasons.

Choose a Space that Fits the Time You Have

Are you too busy to do a big project? Break it down into small chunks you can do in a short amount of time.

If you have just 15 minutes, carry a bag around the room and fill it with trash. After the 15 minutes are over, take the trash straight out to the curb and put it in your garbage can, or put it in your car to drive to the dump. It will make an instant improvement in the room. What counts as trash? Anything that’s not useful to you or anyone else is trash. That includes those stacks of old newspapers and magazines that you’re never going to get to. If you haven’t read them in the last year, you never will. Get rid of them!

If you have half an hour to an hour, declutter ONE drawer or ONE shelf in a closet or cabinet. Start with storage areas that are harder to reach. Pick a place that’s either down near the ground or up high near the ceiling. Things you keep in hard-to-reach places are most likely to be the ones you don’t use or don’t think about much. You may not even remember you have them. Getting rid of them can make way for things you use more and that hold more meaning for you.

Find a flat, empty space to put all the things from the spot you are decluttering. If there isn’t anywhere in the room to do this, then clear off ONE flat surface so you can empty the drawer or shelf onto it.

If you have several hours, clean out a whole closet or declutter a larger area like your desk. The bigger the job you want to tackle, the easier it will be if you recruit a helper. A strong teenager is great for moving boxes or lifting heavy objects. Ask a calm and supportive friend to give you moral support. Getting someone to help you makes a big difference.

Decluttering almost always takes longer than you think it will. Allow yourself extra time to get it done. Most people have much more stuff to clean up than they think they do. Give yourself plenty of time to get the job finished.