Organise your house in such a way that a daily 10 minutes tidy up is all you need to have tidy house for the rest of your life. Declutter your place.

Do you feel like you are always having to tidy up when you are at home, or at least always noticing that you should tidy up? That is not necessary. How to spend less time tidying up your home?

Why is my place always cluttered?

Why is there always stuff spread out everywhere? How come that things are seemingly always ending up on the table, on the kitchen bench? I recognised three possible reasons. An untidy home develops because:

• Household members are not putting their items back to where they belong after using them.
• Maybe there is no place where the things belong (you might want to read ‘ How to never search for anything again’)
• There is too much stuff in the house.

The more things you have, the more time you have to spend to keep it tidy and organised

Declutter your place

Everything you own will take in a place in your home. All items need to be found, to be cleaned, to be put away. The less items you have the less time you will be wasting on searching, maintaining, lifting up when cleaning. Besides that you will do less thinking about all your stuff. If you want it to be easy to have a tidy house, your first goal should be to own less stuff.

By having less, you will gain time and space.

To spend less time tidying up your home you need to declutter your place:

– Get rid of things

(Read more about how to declutter )

– Buy less

(Read tips about how to buy less)

Where to start decluttering my place?

Here is how you can work towards having less stuff in your home. Start with finding out what you have, then decide on what is ‘too much’. Sound easy! But, where to start?

First sort all you have in categories. (See my post How to never search for anything again)

When I took this important step of sorting all my belongings I found out that we had 5 nailclippers between us two. Double the amount of shoes I thought I had. I had so many books that I would never read again. Also, I found things that were gifted to me but that I already had and were now ‘doubles’ or gifts that I did not enjoy using or looking at.

What things should I get rid of?

It is not easy to decide what things you can let go but if you set a few ‘rules’ it will be less draining to make all those decisions. The things you never use are the obvious. Or the things you even forgot you had. Here is a guide line to follow for your first declutter round get rid of everything you do not need or do not want:

Declutter my place – Round 1

Guide for the first declutter round:

Things you do not need or you do not want are things you:

• Have doubles off

• Do not use (e.g. wrong size, no interest, broken, projects I don’t want to finish, no time)

• Do not like ( not my style, not handy, not my taste, bad memories attached)
• The items you forgot you had.

Those are the things you can give away, sell, or repair and use again.

How to get and keep motivated to declutter?

Different people need different ways of motivating themselves to start or to keep tidying up their homes from the clutter. You might stick to your task by promising yourself a reward when finished, food, a rest, read a book, go outside… For many people it helps to formulate the task as a challenge. I will suggest some challenges to start you decluttering.

Choose the challenge you find the most fun. Especially if you have lot of clutter it will be useful to take on the second challenge to keep decluttering, and continue refining your home organisation.

By telling others about your challenge you are more likely to follow up. It is fun to document and share your successes, maybe take pictures and share with your friends or keep them to yourself to remind you of your own success.

If you have less stuff you will gain time you can use for other activities you love to do. How about a moment of rest with a cup of tea?

Declutter your place – Challenge 1

Add to the box.

• Get a big box and everyday you choose at least one item to get rid of, and put it in the box.

• If you like a bigger challenge you find one item the first day, 2 the second 3 the next etc.. Till you can’t find anything to distance from any more.

 If you now take on Challenge Two you might be surprised how may more things you are going to find that you do not love nor need.

Declutter your place – Challenge 2

Refine your categories.

• Find two items per category per day you do not need or not want.

If you would like to try other challenges that keep you going click here.

Example – Declutter Shoes

For example the category shoes. What shoes do you wear regularly? Those are definite keepers.

What shoes have you not been wearing regularly? Which of those:

• you only wear for special occasions– keep.

• you don’t wear because you don’t like them ( out of fashion, not your taste, bad memories attached)- give away ( thrift shop/ friend etc.) or sell.

• are broken or worn of too much to wear? Repair, recycle or as a last resort throw out.

• don’t go with anything you have in your wardrobe but are still in good shape? Give to thrift shop/op shop/ second hand shop.

Example – Declutter Wardrobe

Most people end up wearing the favorite few items very often and use the other less favorite items only sometimes, seldom or never.

Start with getting rid of the ‘seldom or never’ items. If you do a good job in selecting all your favorites you will end up with a wardrobe filled with favourite outfits. Everything you love. And only what you love.

I had a sports-top I loved but seldom wore. About once a year I would decide to wear it, and find out it was just a little too short for my liking. As a result I would wash it, put it back in the wardrobe and a year later the process repeated. I had some good memories of wearing the top, it made me feel good seeing it. But not wearing it. I brought it to the second hand shop and never missed it. Figure out why you are not wearing that item.

Many t-shirts that I destined for getting sweaty in, I kept for years and years. But I never wore them. Giving it another thought I realised it was because they were all too tight, I didn’t like the neck-line, or I didn’t like the fabric. Consequently I only have a dozen orso rightly sized t-shirts that I love wearing.

How many sports tops did I need? Clearly not this many. I decided two different sports outfits were enough for the few times I worked out during the week. I choose my favorites and the rest I gave away. Enough variety for the few classes I go to. Have a good think about how many varieties of outfit for each sort of activity you need. (Read this post if you want to learn how to do this.)

Be sustainable when decluttering

Do not give stuff away or send stuff to the landfill to just give yourself a reason to go shopping again! Astonishing numbers of clothing end up in the landfill unfortunately.

If you are not sure wether you might going to regret parting with certain items, keep it in a ‘give away box’ or bag. Then wait a few months. Do you after those months still feel like you don’t need it or want it. You have not missed it? Then you can now get rid of it. 

No mess ever again

Things to remember to keep you house tidy in less time for the rest of your life:

To maintain your organised home:

• Buy less by buying only what you need. (Tips on buying less)

• Review regularly how much and what you have and compare to what you need.

• Keep things organised at their one specific place. (Post about how to keep your place organised forever)