SolveYourProblem Article Series: Organization
I Have An Urge To Get Organized

How To De-Clutter Your Home

When you first start de-cluttering your home, you will be faced with one constant dilemma: what to do with all this stuff! In fact, de-cluttering is quite an eye-opening experience if you struggle with a lack mentality. You quickly realize that you have more “abundance” than you know what to do with!

As you de-clutter, some items will have a clear destination. Trash goes into the trash bin, dirty clothing goes to the laundry room or hamper, and items that belong in other rooms can be moved there. However, other items might cause you to freeze like a deer suddenly caught in the glare of headlights on a lonely highway. What should be done with it?

To make the de-cluttering process as simple and easy as possible, begin by designating 7 categories into which you will sort all items.

1. Trash

This is for items that are no longer good, useable, or needed. This includes actual trash like empty food containers, wrappers, broken items, and so on, as well as stained or torn clothing, or anything else that serves no purpose.

2. Recycle

Newspapers, magazines, junk mail, glass and plastic containers can go in this pile if your community has a recycling program.

3. Donate

Clothing, house wares, media like DVDs and CDs can be given away if you no longer need them, as well as decorative items, shoes, purses, tote bags, etc. You can also “donate” items to friends and family members! If your mother’s china hutch takes up too much room in your dining area, ask a family member if they want it. Give your used paperback books to your best friend. Besides clearing up your home, you’ll be doing something nice for others.

4. Sell

If you have larger or more valuable items that you’d rather not give away, consider selling them on ebay, in a local consignment shop, or having a yard sale.

5. Process

This category is for paperwork or other things that require action of some sort before it can be filed away permanently.

6. File

For paperwork that needs to be kept, but is not used frequently. Receipts, appliance manuals, school letters and miscellaneous correspondence can take up a lot of room! Hopefully you already have a filing system in place. If not, get some good filing cabinets or file storage boxes, and be sure to label all the files so you can find something quickly if you need to.

7. Keep

Finally, this pile is for items you want to keep, and which will be stored away neatly in a designated spot.

The biggest challenge in de-cluttering is being firm with yourself about the items you really need to keep, and which items can be released. Rule of thumb: if you haven’t used it recently and don’t have any firm purpose in mind for the use of it in the near future, be willing to part with it.

If you struggle with separation anxiety and worry that you might need something later, ask yourself what you would do if that happened? Would it be a big imposition to go buy a replacement at a later time? It’s easy to talk ourselves into believing something is more important than it really is, when we could easily obtain a similar or better one later if we really wanted to.

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by SolveYourProblem.com : 2008

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