9 Ways to Have a Clutter-Free Home

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How is the clutter in your home? Is it overwhelming, sabotaging, reckless? Does it drive you crazy that your home is this way and you want a better solution to maintain its craziness? Would you love a clutter-free home?

I understand. My home used to be cluttered with stuff. Especially when I had young kids (they still make a mess but the toys are much less). Toys were everywhere and I was exhausted at the end of the day just thinking about cleaning up anything. Dishes always pilled up since that was the last thing I wanted to tackle after a long day. And the clutter and mayhem just kept piling up. It looked like there was no way out of this.

Then I read a book. Marie Kondo’s, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. This book let me see that anything is possible when it comes to removing the clutter in my home. Now, it wasn’t easy. It took months but I decided to stick with it so I could have the home I wanted. I hated living with all the clutter. It was depressing to wake up to, drained all of my energy throughout the day, and I knew I was sick and tired of it all.

Now, I know I had the burning desire to get my house under control and that definitely helped to push me when I wanted to give up. But, take a look at your home and really take it in how it makes you feel. Does it make you feel anxious, overwhelmed, hopeless?

Now, I’m going to ask you this – Is it worth feeling this way every day of your life or would you rather put in the work, get your home decluttered, and then have the home that brings you joy every time you see it? I know you could be looking at a tremendous amount of work, I get it. Your home didn’t get cluttered and messy in a day or a week or even a month. It took time so it will take time to get your home decluttered and organized. But here are 7 ways to get your home clutter-free so you can start enjoying it!

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8 Ways to Get Your Home Clutter-Free

Establish a Baseline

Decluttering is hard work. Especially when you have a tremendous amount of work to do. But you can’t expect to start decluttering when other parts of your home aren’t working well.

What I mean by this is, you first need to address the areas in your home that are causing you the most stress. Is it the dishes, the laundry, daily tidying up, etc? You need to identify what those key areas are in your home that aren’t working right now. Then, address those first by only working on a few of them each day. Take 2-3 things that will make the biggest impact in your home if they were done daily.

Once you know this, focus on them until they get easier to do. This may take a few weeks or longer. This will be your baseline. Get this working smoothly and then look at adding more things in.

Start Small

When you start decluttering, you’ll want to start with a small area in your home that needs some TLC. Maybe a drawer, a small closet, a corner in a room? Always start small when you are ready to start tackling your mess. Anything too big will overwhelm you before you even begin and it could cause you to want to give up because of it.

I always start in drawers. I just dump everything out, toss what I don’t want anymore, move what doesn’t belong, and reorganize what’s left. It’s easy, doesn’t take up much time, and isn’t an overwhelming project. Keep doing small projects until you feel comfortable tackling a bigger project.

Go Through Easy Things

What I mean by this is don’t start with sentimental things that are going to be hard to decide what to keep and what to get rid of. Start with easy things like clothes, coats, kitchen items, papers, books.

Again, don’t overwhelm yourself with too difficult of choices when you are starting. Go simple and you’ll be more likely to keep it up. And if you come across something of sentimental value and you’re not ready to decide, put it aside and deal with it when you’re ready.

Sort Your Items

I always like to start with designating three areas using boxes, bags, or anything else that can designate these areas. One will be to keep pile, a donate/sell pile, and a trash pile. If you don’t want to go through the hassle of selling your things, simply don’t do it.

Now, you’ll need to be ruthless when going through your things. Be honest with yourself. If you haven’t used something in 6 – 12 months or longer, will you really start using it now? If it’s in good condition, either sell it or donate it. Everything else you don’t want, throw it out immediately.

With your sell and/or donate piles, take care of these piles as soon as possible. Have a yard sale, list the items online to sell. and put your donation pile in your car for the next time you’re out. Don’t let things that you don’t want anymore sit around your home.

Now, for your keep pile, make a decision where everything will go. Make sure everything has a place. If you don’t know where something belongs, make a new place for it and keep using it.

Use a Timer

Most times we don’t want to do the work because we think it’ll take a long time to do it. If you don’t have a lot of time, set a timer for the time you do have. If you have 10 minutes, set that. And remember this, 10 minutes of work is always better than no work at all.

So, next time you have a few minutes to work, set the timer and get to work until the timer goes off. You’ll be happy with yourself for doing the work, no matter how small it is. And who knows, maybe that quick decluttering session will give you the motivation to keep working.

Change Your Mentality

This will be hard. Your home didn’t get messy in a day so don’t expect this to be an easy fix. Be realistic with yourself that this will be hard work. Remind yourself of what you want your home to look like. Take pictures from magazines and post them around your home for inspiration. You can also make a vision board and use that for inspiration as you work. And keep at it, don’t give up. You want a clutter-free home and you can have it as long as you keep pushing yourself to what you want.

Keep a positive attitude

We all feel it, “I don’t want to do this work” or “I’m too tired to do anything”. Sometimes we just need to shift how we’re thinking. If your mind is telling you you’re too tired to do something, you won’t have the motivation to do anything. Instead, tell yourself you only have to do 5-10 minutes of work and then you can stop. Tell yourself it won’t be hard and you’ll be happy with yourself for doing the work. Have a more positive attitude about clearing the clutter and it will be much easier to push yourself when times get tough.

Another trick I learned is to change the way you think about a task. Instead of saying “I have to do the laundry”, say “I get to do the laundry”. See how that changes your perspective? By putting a positive spin on a task that needs to get done, might make the task not so bad after all.

I think we can all agree that it’s so much better and easier to do laundry in our home than at a laundry mat. So, next time you “have to” do your laundry, maybe tell yourself you get to do your laundry while appreciating the fact that you do have a washing machine that works!

Celebrate your progress

So many times, we forget to reward ourselves for completing a project. We finish one task and then move on to the next, never looking back at the progress we’ve made. Don’t forget this step. This is an important one. Celebrating your progress will motivate you to keep going. No matter how small the project is, celebrate it.

Final Thoughts

I know you may be thinking you couldn’t possibly remove all the clutter from your home. If that’s you, read Marie Kondo’s book. It’s an eye-opener and she walks you through step by step what to work on next. And I know it will help you too.

Be sure to start with establishing your baseline so it’ll make other tasks more manageable. Next, get started with your decluttering. Don’t let clutter negatively affect you anymore. You deserve better. It’s time for you to start enjoying the home the way you want to.

What will you start with first to declutter? Let me know in the comments and start today. I want you to enjoy your clutter-free home!

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