“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” – William Morris
Confession time! I’m a bit of a pack rat. I would love to keep all the crafty items and drawings my girls make me, magazines that I may read again, tickets from concerts that I have been to, old furniture and clothes that may prove useful again at some time in the future, but I also love an uncluttered, clean home.
Here are ten ways to reduce clutter and help stop the overwhelm in your home.
1. Donate On A Regular Basis
Keep a give away box in an area of your home and use it! Once full, donate the items or set a regular time once a month to go to the donation centre. Baby items can go to a new mom you know, clothes you no longer wear can go to a consignment store.
2. Hold A Garage Sale
Sell items you no longer need or want and make some extra money.
3. Use What You Have
Use the food in your pantry and freezer, the toiletries in your bathroom cabinets, the gift cards in your purse. Take an inventory so you know what you have.
4. Stop Buying
Do you shop for leisure or because something is a good deal? If you are an impulse buyer, set a timeline for a decision. Think it over for 24 – 48 hours. Most times, you won’t remember why you wanted the item. Instead of buying something new, what can you re-purpose? Do you sew? Could you create a new outfit from clothing that no longer fits? Do you paint? Create a new look by painting furniture or canvases for your room.
5. One In, One Out
Practice this rule. Remove one item from your home when you purchase something new.
6. Change Your Habits
Do you have a place for everything in your home? Clutter often appears because you don’t know where to store items or there are too many items and you cannot put them away properly. Designating a spot for everything and putting everything away promptly will make a big difference in the state of your home.
7. Rent Instead Of Buy
Instead of buying something that you will only use once a year, rent instead. This could be items such as power tools, carpet cleaners or movies that you will only watch once.
8. Teach Your Family
Teach your family good habits so they can learn to identify their own clutter and how to deal with it. Keeping the home clean is everyone’s responsibility.
9. Keep A Gift List
Instead of buying everything you want, keep a gift list. When people ask you what you would like for birthdays or Christmas, you will have a list handy with specific items that you would like to receive.
10. Impose Limits
Do you really need two coffee makers, twenty sweatshirts and magazines from five years ago? Keep only what you will use and fits in the space you allocate. If you have room for ten sweatshirts, only keep ten sweatshirts. If your children have a toy box in their room, only keep the toys that will fit in the box.
Eliminating clutter takes a weight off your shoulders and enables you to have the time and energy to live your life.
Set limits? What evil speaketh thou??
HAHA
I’ve been de-cluttering for 8 weeks now. I could not believe the sheer volume of stuff that I got rid of! And need to do it all again, since I’m moving to a less than half sq ft that I have now place.
That’s a lot of decluttering Melinda! Good luck with your move.
Thank you Debbie. I moved in Sat. Now we’ll see how great I did at de-cluttering when I unpack and try to fit everything in! haha Might be more de-cluttering in my future!
I’m sure you did a great job Melinda! Hope you settle in well and it feels like home soon.
oops, forgot to say I found you on Monday Madness.
Good tips. I have been on a decluttering mission this year. I have found that the more I get rid of things, the easier it is to get rid of more. It’s actually kind of addictive! I have created a lot of space this way. 🙂
It does feel like an addiction!
Great tips, Debbie! We are getting ready to move in the next couple of months, and I’m on a need to purge everything kick.When we move, I’m going to impose the boundaries idea. I have no idea how we accumulate so much stuff. Thanks for sharing your ideas with us! 🙂
Good luck with your move Kelsey! I think all the stuff breeds when we’re not looking. 🙂
Such good tips!!! We keep trying to have the one in one out rule… but have not reached that point yet! We are going to work on it!
It definitely takes practice Stasia!
Use What You Have and One In, One Out are both great tips!! I am working on both right now.
Visiting from mama moments. 🙂
Thanks for visiting Emily! Have a lovely week.
The one in-one out rule is my favorite, and I”m learning to embrace this with my clothes especially. We just went from a small apartment to a bigger home, so sometimes I feel like my goal right now is to fill a bigger space rather than empty out what we already have! I guess everything comes in seasons, right? Thanks for sharing!
That must be a nice feeling Lauren!
Oh how I hate clutter. I declutter every week and I too like to donate what we don’t need and just stop buying stuff by making less visits to the stores. It’s amazing how much money we waste on things we don’t need. Great tips!
Thanks so much for stopping by Denise! Have a lovely week.
I like donating regularly. I do that and I do cosignment shops as well.
I love your gift list idea and the rental one. I am actually trying out a clothing rental for a free month too. I’m curious to see how that goes. 🙂
Sounds interesting Phallin! Thanks so much for visiting. Have a lovely week.
These are great tips! I keep a container that I try to fill up once a month to donate. However, I think I’m running a little behind on my de-cluttering this month – time to get to work filling it up again!
Thanks for sharing, found you on Titus 2sdays!
Thanks so much for visiting Laura!
Decluttering some of the stuff in my house is big on my to do list right now. I really like the one in and one out.
Coming to you from #Mom2MomMondayLinkup! I really loved this! It was actually a good gauge for what I do well and what I should do better. Pinning! Blessings from #EspressosofFaith!
So happy to hear that you liked it Bonnie! Thanks for visiting.
I’m considering making a poster of these points for my children. Great tips thank you x
Lovely idea! Thanks for visiting.
There are some great (and convicting!) ideas here. I am a clutterbug and have a difficult time letting things go. But I LOVE it when things feel organized. So maybe this can help get my rear in gear towards a less-cluttered home! 😉
I hope this helps. It’s a great feeling when your home is decluttered (at least for a little while)!
Great list! Thank you for sharing. So simple but, for some, it can be so hard!!
Thanks Amanda. I agree that some of them do take some practice!
From the other comments it seems like a lot of us declutter for a move. I did that a couple of months ago when we moved and I’m still finding things and wondering why I thought we needed them after all! Once you start letting stuff go it does get a lot easier but your tip to just stop buying seems like a really good one. We all have a lot more “stuff”than we really need!
I’m so guilty of #4! Thank you for linking up with Thursday Favorite Things and I hope you have a glorious day!
I desperately needed this list, de-cluttering is a HUGE item on my summer to do list! Thanks for sharing at Merry Monday! This is going t be one of my features this week. Hope to see you again Sunday night!
Hi Chelc. Decluttering is always on my list! I hope you have a wonderful week.
Such a great list of tips. I’m in a major decluttering purge right now. After years of constant reorganization of stuff, I decided to get rid of most of it.
If I don’t love/need/use it…it’s gone. Even my four year old is helping with her toys!
We are planning on moving in the next year or two so that helps my motivation a lot! That and the fact that I live in an extremely small space and despise clutter!
Well done Mary! So excited to hear that your little one is helping you.
Debbie, I am a cohost of Wake Up Wednesday. I have nominated you as feature of the week —- congrats! Please swing by my blog and show some love by saying hi while there. Thanks!
Thanks so much Jay!
Hi! Visiting from Monday Madness Link Up. These are great tips that we are trying to implement as a family and develop the habit of doing these things.
Good tips! Now that I am coming out of newborn baby haze, my project this summer is to tackle all the clutter that has come into my house over the period of the last year. I was too tired during pregnancy to deal with it but now I’m ready to get down to purging and decluttering! Thanks for sharing these tips!
Congratulations on the birth of your sweet little one! I find that slow and steady is a great approach. It keeps the motivation going as you can see improvement and you don’t burn out.