how to get rid of clutter

How to Get Rid of Clutter in Your Home: 9 Simple Tips

No matter how hard we might try, clutter finds a way to pop up inside the home. You can set your sights on a clutter-free home, but you’ll find that things start to unravel again the moment you lose focus.

Instead of working to prevent clutter, it might be more useful to understand how to get rid of clutter when it comes up. Further, we can create habits that reduce the amount of clutter that we generate throughout the day.

We’re going to talk about getting rid of clutter today, working through a few ideas that could be solutions for your cluttered home. Let’s get started.

1. Get Rid of Junk

Getting rid of junk is the first thing you should do. There’s no getting around it.

Extra things find a way to cloud your space, regardless of how much storage you have. “Clutter” is synonymous with “junk.” If you find yourself in a cluttered house, ask how much of the stuff in your home is stuff you use.

If there’s a lot of stuff that you don’t enjoy, don’t want, and don’t have a place for, then it’s time to get rid of it. You’ll feel a lot better.

2. Organize Your Clutter Categories

Some things that clutter our homes are necessary. For example, pieces of mail that you need or might need at some point tend to get everywhere. Where do you put that letter from the IRS or that credit card offer that you might actually want?

Most times, we toss those things on the table and forget about them. The next time we grab the mail, we do the same thing. Before you know it, there’s a big clutter pile full of things you might need to look at.

That causes stress, and stress breeds procrastination. So, create places to put things like mail as soon as you look at them. If you’ve got a well-organized approach to things that tend to clutter, you’ll attack the problem right at the source.

3. Run Through Each Night

Before you go to bed each night, walk through your home and see if you’ve left anything out. You don’t have to “clean,” you just have to pick up after yourself.

Maybe there’s a screwdriver on your desk from that afternoon or a box of old pictures you were sifting through. In any case, grab the things you’ve used throughout the day and put them away.

You’ll wake up to a generally clutter-free home if you do that each night.

4. Be Liberal With Tossing Things Out

It’s not a bad thing to be sentimental. It’s not bad to keep things around, either.

That said, there are some things that you will never need. It might seem like you could need it at some point, but a little thought tends to tell you otherwise.

For example, what are you doing with that receipt that you kept? You went to the movies or out to dinner with a friend, kept the receipt, and now it’s on your dresser. Will you look at the receipt as a piece of memorabilia?

If so, put it in your “memorabilia box” (refer to section two). If you’re not going to look at it, then throw it away. Your friend won’t hate you for it, nobody will be hurt by it, and there won’t be any bad karma that comes to you.

Just toss it out, keep your living space clean, and invite your friend over to make more memories.

5. Take a Day to Organize

If your home keeps getting out of order and you’re on clutter removal duty all of the time, there might be an issue with the way things are organized. Do some thinking, imagine ways that you could restructure things or organize differently, then make a plan.

Try to organize in such a way that you can access things you need, and the things you don’t need are stuffed somewhere deep down in the depths. That way, you’re not tearing through boxes and unleashing more clutter as you try to find things.

Take a day or two and reorganize your things. You might find that you’re not producing quite as much clutter and you have a lot more space in general.

6. Store Vertically

One way to organize is to use wall hangers. There are closet wall hangers and many other options for you to utilize wall space for storage. These are cheap and aesthetically pleasing in a lot of cases.

Utilize your walls and free up space on your counters, tables, and other surfaces.

7. Messy Zones

Some of us are naturally messy. Messiness might help us maintain creativity, free up space as we work on things, and allow us to visualize different projects at once. For example, some people keep four or five works in progress on their desks.

If that’s you, confine your messiness to one or two places. Use your office as a place to vent your messy tendencies. Dedicate yourself to decluttering the rest of the home.

8. Stop Buying Unnecessary Things

You don’t need more stuff! You’re trying to get rid of the extra stuff you already have, so refrain from buying that sweet-smelling candle.

Declutter, then you can see if there’s space for those extra things. Clutter comes when we have more than we need, so stop adding to the pile if you have the power to.

9. Hire a Cleaning Service

The best tip we can give to anyone who has trouble keeping their house in order is to hire a cleaning service. Cleaners are excellent at making things clean and sparkly, and they might even help you put your clutter in the right places.

If not, they’ll help incentivize you to clear the clutter so they can come in and make things sparkle again.

Need More Ideas on How to Get Rid of Clutter?

Figuring out how to get rid of clutter is a personal journey. You’ve got to find what works for you. That said, some tricks and tips can’t hurt.

We’re here to help you with more ideas on ways to keep your house clean. Explore our site for ideas on clutter removal, cleaning, and much more.

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