Spring Cleaning

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Wouldn’t it be nice to just live simply?

That’s a question cuts to the heart of why many of us feel stressed, burdened, and trapped. We’re not living simply at home, when simple is what we need the most. And because our homes are where most of us spend the majority of our time, this is a big deal.

Fortunately, spring is just around the corner! This time of year provides the perfect excuse to get simple and start de-cluttering your home. The windows are opened, the air smells of flowers, and our friends are starting their own spring cleaning—these are the perfect ingredients for motivation.

Now, de-cluttering can, admittedly, be boring. After all, who wants to sort through all that stuff all day when the weather is so nice outside? And as the saying goes, we rarely succeed in what we’re doing unless we manage to have a little fun along the way.

And so to help you get on the path to a simple, clean, and stress-free life, let’s take a look at 7 ways to de-clutter your home that won’t leave you bored.

Take the 10 Minute Challenge

Sometimes, de-cluttering can feel overwhelming, if not downright impossible. So what do you do when there’s stuff on the floor, things on the countertops, and the drawers are packed with knick knacks from twenty years ago?

You take the 10 minute challenge. Here’s how to start.

Identify tiny de-cluttering jobs that you could do in 10 minutes—cleaning out a single drawer or clearing off a bedside table, for instance. Make a nice, long list of these tiny jobs.

Now just do one or two of these sessions a day—no more. Clean out that drawer. Clear off that table. Create a de-cluttering starting-zone in each room. Anything that will take you 10 minutes or less is fair game.

This will help even the most anxious de-clutterer to get started. Remember this secret: the bigger the job, the smaller you should break it up. With the 10 minute challenge, you can make the worst of housecleaning jobs feel easy.

Give Away an Item a Day

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Giving is good for your health, and the “helper’s high” you get from contributing to charity has been proven to lower blood pressure, increase self-esteem, and lower stress levels in general.

That’s why this next fun way of de-cluttering is so great!

This game is simple and straightforward. You’ve got stuff you want to get rid of. A lot of it—probably more than you realize. Other people are in need, and may have use of that stuff. So you’re going to give away one belonging a day to charity until you’re left with only the things you truly want.

This is easy when you’re at the 5 or 10 items. But when you’re on your 30^th item, the decision of what to rid yourself of is going to start getting hard. But it’s only when it becomes impossible that the job is done.

The outcome will be a gradual simplification. Before you know it, you’ll be left with only the items that make you happy and are most useful, and you’ll have done it without having to take on your entire house-full of things at once.

Play the Packing Game

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One fun way you can de-clutter as a group is playing the packing game.

So how does this work, you might ask? It’s simple. Gather a group of friends and a large collection of containers, bags, suitcases—anything you can pack your things into.

Now, go from room to room and start packing everything up. Every single thing that can be packed, should be packed. Do this to as much of your house as possible.

All packed up? Does your house now look like you’re getting ready to move out of the country? Good—time for the next step.

Leave it all packed. That’s right—just leave it. Now, only take out an item when you absolutely need it. When you do take out a needed item, use it and place it in its correct place in your home.

After a while, it will become apparent which items you really use, and which you don’t—the things that are left packed after a month or two are probably items that can either go in the trash or to charity.

Perform the Closet Hangar Experiment

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Next up, you’re going to let Oprah Winfrey into your closet. Well, her de-cluttering method, anyway.

Most of us have an excess of clothing, much of which we don’t wear. If your closet is full of out-of-date styles and pieces that don’t fit, it might just be time to de-clutter using Oprah’s hangar experiment.

To do this, start by making sure all of your hangars face in the same direction—preferably, in the opposite direction they normally face. After you wear an item and are ready to place it back in the closet, turn its hangar back to the normal direction.

After a few months, you’ll be able to easily see which pieces you regularly wear, and which you don’t. It’s time to get rid of everything on a hangar that’s facing the wrong way!

Once you do this, not only will your wardrobe be simplified and your closet, de-cluttered, but you’ll have some extra room for next year’s styles!

Just make sure you'll actually wear them.

Create a Sorting System

Sometimes, it’s just fun to do things in an organized way. And unless you’re a superhuman at housework, organization is essential to the de-cluttering process.

One great way to organize your de-cluttering process is to create a sorting system, and one of the best sorting systems for the job at hand is the four-box method.

When you enter the room which you intend to de-clutter, and label them “trash,” “charity,” “keep,” and “move”. The first three are self-explanatory, and the last box is for items that need to go somewhere else in your home.

Go over each and every item in the room, carefully selecting the correct box for each. This process can take some time, but if you’re the patient type, it can be very satisfying.

When the boxes are full, empty them into the appropriate places and continue. Keep at it, and you’ll soon find freedom from excessive things.

Divide and Conquer

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Dividing up a large task is one of the most basic ways to make de-cluttering your home more bearable.

Most of us, when faced with an enormous amount of work—such as a big house full of stuff—feel reluctant to begin. In fact, because of the enormity of the task at hand, we may put it off indefinitely, allowing clutter to reach unhealthy levels.

But fear not—there is a way out!

Don’t think about de-cluttering your entire home at once. Instead, try this: section off one room of your home. Now, section off one area of that room. That’s your task for the day.

Sounds a lot better, doesn’t it?

Even better, if you have a few helping hands, you can assign different parts of a room to different people, and none of you will have to bear the burden of the entire job.

Best of all, you don’t need hours to do this. You need only an hour or so to clean a single room, or a part of a room. If you’re easily overwhelmed or simply don’t have the time, divide and conquer your clutter for a better home.

Ask the All-Important Question

Finally, this last de-cluttering tip is, by far, the most important. As you’re working, you’re going to be tempted to keep things. “I’ll use it eventually,” you might think. But to truly decide whether an object is worth keeping, ask yourself this one question.

“Does it bring me joy?”

If you can honestly answer this question, and find that the answer is no, that item needs to go. If it’s not bringing you joy, it’s bringing you stress by crowding your home.

Let it go.

The ability to let go is essential to de-cluttering, and this question can help you do that. Don’t hang onto the possibilities of an item—you’re never going to use that neon green plastic rooster. Focus on the present—you’ll use things like tools and sewing needles and light bulbs, but not decorations that haven’t been out of the attic in three years—things like that won’t bring you joy.

Ask the most important question as you de-clutter, and you’ll soon find yourself free of the shackles of excessive material goods.

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