Decluttering and Organizing 101
Even though we do plenty of organizing, packing and unpacking the most common thing we do is decluttering! We would love for you to call us to help with your decluttering but we know it can be a very time consuming process and due to budget or time constraints we may not always be able to help you out. So, I thought it might be helpful to go through the house room by room and talk about some of the major points for a do-it-yourself decluttering project. Before we get too far into the details, I think it is important to first hit on the basic decluttering and organizing steps which can then be applied to any space.
Get Ready! Clear an area of the floor to make space to pull stuff out of whatever area you are decluttering. Have boxes and trash bags ready for your different categories. Typical categories are Donate, Keep, Other Places in the House, Trash, and occasionally Sell. If you are wanting to sell unused items it is a good idea to set yourself a deadline for getting them sold as well as a minimum price level of items to sell. It's easy for your Sell pile to end up being just another clutter pile and setting guidelines for selling seems to help.
Remove all items from the space and put them into the Donate, Keep, Other Places in the House, and Trash categories.
Questions to ask yourself:
Do I need it?
Do I use it?
Do I love it?
Would I buy it again?
Do I have something else that could fulfill the purpose of this item?
Do I have room for it?
The questions you should use depend on your situation and personality.
As the Donate and Trash fill up, get them out of the room to make more space. Something to keep in mind...It is not always convenient to pull everything out of a space at the same time. If you only have an hour to work you definitely aren't going to want to put the contents of your kitchen onto the kitchen counter. If you need to break it into more manageable chunks for the sake of time or space, definitely do that!
Sort the things you are keeping into categories, grouping like items together. If similar items are in a different area of the home, it is a good idea to bring in those as well. Seeing how many of a particular thing you have can help make the decision to get rid of things easier.
Figure out where the keep will live. Many things will do better if they are contained but it is hard to know what kind of container you will need unless you know where you are putting it. When deciding where to store items consider frequency of use and whether anything else will be added to the space from other rooms. Ask yourself “Where would I look for this if I needed it?” It doesn’t do much good to be organized if you aren't able to find what you are looking for. Also think about dividing spaces into zones. For example in a garage you may want to have a yard/garden zone, toy/game zone, car care zone and a tool zone.
Purchase or repurpose containers or organizing tools. Once you see how much space the items take up and the amount of shelf/cabinet/drawer space you are working with you can determine how to best contain them. Choose containers that fit the space and are big enough to hold everything they need to hold. At this point I like to think about the ease of putting things away. For example a stack of shoeboxes may fit nicely in the closet but personally if I have to pull everything out to put something away in the bottom box, many times the item will have the tendency to end up on top of the stack.
Label. It is amazing how satisfying and useful labels are. It really finishes off the space and makes it so much easier for people to put things back after they are done using them.
Drop off donations, list items to sell, take trash to the garage, and deliver other items to the room where they belong. If you have already decluttered that space, put it where it belongs, otherwise, just leave it. You’ll get there soon!
The most important thing to remember is the more ruthless you are, the happier you will be with the result!! Also, if budget is a concern the more you can get through and get rid of the quicker and affordable it would be for us to come in and do some organizing!
