Having less stuff to deal with leaves you with more time to focus on other important areas of life. It also saves the time that would have been wasted trying to find stuff in your over-cluttered house. But as much as you desire having a clutter-free home, it can be hard to start decluttering because of how monumental a task it can be. After all, it’s not easy to get rid of the things that took a lifetime to accumulate.
Even if you have the motivation and tools to start decluttering your home, it can be hard to walk the first step if you don’t have a proper strategy or method to do it.
That’s exactly where this post comes into play.
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If you have the necessary decluttering tools and time at your disposal, all you need is a method that can help you achieve a spotless home in minimal time. Not that these are the only methods to declutter your home, but they can surely help you streamline the process of decluttering when your house is a mess:
1. The Konmari Method
You cannot just talk about decluttering without taking Marie Kondo’s name. Although I was too late to jump on the Konmari wagon (about three years ago), this method has totally changed the way I used to declutter my home.
For a really long time, I considered decluttering as an act of letting go of what’s not needed. But Konmari method taught me to adopt a more practical approach to decluttering to make it more meaningful. Since the act of letting go can seem like an emotionally daunting task, Marie Kondo suggests that one must look at decluttering as an act of choosing what to keep rather than choosing what to let go of. Also, the Konmari method suggests that you should declutter by category rather than decluttering room by room.
For instance, if you are looking to start decluttering with clothes, grab every item that belongs in that category and create a pile on your bed. This means that you will have to sift through every closet and drawer in your home to find every piece of clothing, including the socks and underwear, and gather it all in one place. You can then start pulling out the items that you want to keep and sort the remaining ones in the donate or trash pile.
2. The Four Box Method
This method always comes handy when you are going for a quick declutter of a particular corner or area of your house. Unlike the Konmari method, the four box method doesn’t require you to have a lot of time in your pocket. All you need is four boxes, bins or baskets – labelled as Keep, Trash, Donate and Sell – and some quick decision-making skills.
If you are hoping to give your living room a nice little purge using The Four Box Method, take a room tour starting from one corner of the living room and pick up anything in sight that is lying out of place. Grab the items lying on the floor or the sofa or anywhere else – chocolate wrappers, kids’ toys, puzzle pieces, newspaper, cords, etc. and toss them in the relevant boxes.
3. The Packing Party
This amazing game was developed by the Minimalists. And although I had never considered using this method to declutter my home, I finally decided to give it a try during my family’s recent move. Since we were already moving to a new place to get our old home renovated, I packed everything in boxes as the method suggests.
After making the move to our new place, we decided to bring the items out of the packaging as and when they were needed. When we were cooking, we only brought out the pans and pots that were needed for that particular cooking session. And when we were going out, we only unpacked the clothes that we knew we were going to wear. 3 weeks in, we realized that over 40% of the stuff was still lying unpacked most of which was clutter. We unpacked all the remaining stuff and individually went through every item to decide whether to keep it or discard it.
4. The Backwards Hanger Method
This particular method would work wonders if you are drowning in a whole lot of clothing clutter but can’t let go of it. All you have to do is get a few dozen hangers to put all your clothes on. Once every piece of clothing in your closet has been put on the hangers, make sure that they are all arranged in a way that the hooks of the hangers are facing you.
As you pick clothes to wear with every passing day, launder and arrange them back in the hangers with the hooks now facing the opposite direction. So if earlier the hooks were facing backwards, they should now face forward once you’ve worn and washed them.
After 30 days or 3 months or 6 months (or whatever period suits you), grab the clothes that are still facing backwards. Remember that these are the clothes that you haven’t worn in the time period during which you took this challenge. Ideally, these pieces are the ones that should be trashed, donated or sold because it’s obvious that you don’t like wearing them.
Make sure that you discount seasonal clothing items like coats, jackets or party wear while taking this challenge.
5. The Minimalist Game
This is another amazing decluttering method developed by the minimalists. The last time I used this method was when I was working on embracing minimalism full-time.
Beginning on the first day of the month, The Minimalist Game requires you to get rid of the same number of items as is the day of the month. Assuming that you take this challenge for the entire month of January, you need to get rid of 1 item on day 1, 2 items on day 2, 7 items on day 7 and 31 items on day 31.
While these methods are all popular and effective, it’s on you to figure out which one of them works for you. There can also be other ways and methods to declutter your home that I might have not heard of yet. Do you know of any? I would love to know. Share your thoughts in the comments below or drop me a message at hello@theaestheticabode.com.