Clearing the Clutter

I am a totaly stuff hoarder myself. However, when my husband and I got married I had to leave everything behind. My parents refused to allow me to get anything from the house and I had only managed to get a very few items like extra clothes and a my letter box. Although it sucks, having to leave all that stuff behind wasn't such a terrible thing...minus the one blue bin with all my family heirloom pieces from grandparents and aunts that I really wish I had. Anyway, it gave me a completely empty canvas of nothing. Which means all the clutter I had managed to gather and collect over the past 20 years was no longer there. Fast forward two an a half years later...waaaay to much stuff again! We are moving in the next few days though so I am going to take advantage of that and as I unpack boxes and put things away I am going to declutter. That way I am not just filling my house with more junk. I think the key to minimizing though is to not only declutter but to prevent new clutter. As amazing as unclutter is it totally sucks to do all that work and then in a few months just have it reverse back to what it was. Maintaining the clutter is the key! This comes from having a purposeful mindset to not say, "I'm just gonna shove this here I'll get to it later." So here are a few ways to declutter and then maintain the unclutteredness.

Have a Junk Drawer

EVERY house has a junk drawer and if yours doesn't....yeah I just don't believe that is possible lol. Point is it is fine to have a "junk drawer." But it is very important to let let it become a junk cabinet, then a junk counter and eventually a junk closet. Junk drawers are for those little things that are necessary but don't really make sense anywhere in the house. It's like the catch all for things like paper clips and random screws and little notes that you know are important but don't know what to do with. Having a junk drawer is like the one little place in the house that you can not worry about because it's not supposed to make sense and be organized (although props if yours is). So instead of shoving stuff in random places designate a DRAWER (emphasis because you don't want something with a lot of space) and when you don't know what to do with something put it in there. Now don't just leave it there...and this leads us in to part two

End of the day declutter

If you have been following me for a while, especially for the month of February, then you know about my "Finding Normal" series and hopefully have already been working on cleaning your home up. If that is the case then this fits right in. At the end of the day while doing your laundry basket clean up add a declutter the space task to your to do list. All those things you put in the junk drawer...go scan through it and see if you can find it a home. If you can't ask yourself if it is important or there is any REAL reason you should save it. If not chunk it. get rid of it. If yes to any of those questions then you should be able to find a home for it. The idea of the junk drawer is to be like a holding cell until you have a little more time to thoroughly decided if you need something. If you managed to still convince yourself to shove stuff other places as well, then go through those too. It might sound like a lot of work going through each area and looking for clutter. However, if you do it daily it won't take more than five minutes. The idea behind it is to fix the clutter daily so it doesn't actually become cluttered. 

15 minute declutter

If you haven't decluttered yet and are just starting this process, it can be very daunting. Every room seems like it will take hours to conquer and where do you even start? I don't know about you but I usually have to work myself up to a big project so I suggest starting in the easiest room to do. The reason for this is twofold. Not only do you get started somewhere but more importantly you will be done with that area faster and therefore, feel very accomplished. That will encourage you to keep cleaning in the other rooms. Anyway, I digress. Pick a room to start in get a trash bag a box and a laundry basket. Set a timer for 15 min. then start decluttering. Go through each item. If it is trash toss it, if you don't want it but it is in good shape and not trash put it in the box if it is something that just shouldn't be in that room put it in the laundry basket. When the timer goes off stop. Throw the trash away, put the box somewhere to be donated or sold, and take the laundry basket and put the items away where they belong. Do this in every room. taking 15-30min. breaks in between. 

Give yourself some credit

Seriously even the person whose home looks perfect probably just shoved all their crap in a closet before you came over. So give yourself some credit. The fact that you want to clean and organize your home is the first step in the whole process. Even if your house isn't perfect that is okay! Our homes are meant to be our sanctuaries not places that we are constantly stressed about if they aren't in perfect shape 100% of the time. Nobody is perfect you're meant to live in the house not treat it like a museum. 

What are some tips and tricks you use to declutter or keep cutter from piling up? Leave a comment below or email me at maryannapartlow@gmail.com I love hearing from you! Don't forget, you can share this on facebook and like my facebook page as well as follow me on instagram and twitter! Remember that "Finding Normal" Week 3 is this Tuesday can't wait!!!