It’s amazing how much “stuff” you can accumulate over long periods of time. Whether it be clothes or knick-knacks, over time those items can be a little crowding. Once you start to feel crowded in your home, that’s when you know it’s time to start decluttering.
Decluttering sounds pretty easy… all you’re doing is getting rid of the stuff you don’t use, right? Well, decluttering is easy for some people, but can be very daunting for others. In the minds of “pack rats” and hoarders, they NEED that “stuff” not being used. It could be faded and have dust all over it, but a pack rat would never get rid of it! Now, it’s understandable to not want to get rid of items that have some type of emotional attachment to you, but if it doesn’t, it needs to be tossed.
With accumulating tons of stuff over time, germs have the potential to arise. Decluttering is just a good cleaning habit to have in general. The popular TV show Hoarders showcased people living in homes filled with massive amounts of trash and “stuff” that absolutely needed to go, whether it needed to go to the dump or to a donation center, it just needed to go! Imagine the germs in those homes! I’m not going to let you get to that point, especially with these simple ways to avoid cluttering up your home.
Take 5 Minutes Now or 30 Minutes Later
How many times have you come home from work or school and thrown your jacket on the couch, kicked off your shoes and left them wherever they landed, and let your clothes pile up on the ironing board? Far too many times. This seems to be a trend among working adults during the week. When the weekend hits, that’s when the laundry will get done and cleaning up occurs. If you just put your clothes and shoes away in their respected areas, it could free up your weekends from doing chores.
Putting your clothes and shoes away is a chore we learned as a child, so what makes us revert away from that habit as an adult? It’s the simple fact that we’re adults and can do whatever we want to do! Part of being an adult is doing what we want to do, but doing what we don’t want to do is also part of it as well. Putting your clothes and shoes away in their right place also helps if you have the tools and resources to do so.
One of the decluttering tools is a dirty clothes basket. When you get home and change your clothes, they need to either be hung back up in the closet or folded and put away in your drawer or put in the dirty clothes basket. The important aspect of putting your clothes away is your closet. Your closet where the majority of your clothes and shoes go, and it’s also where dirty clothes baskets are found. Closets are a huge factor when searching for a new place so, make sure it gives you plenty of closet space.
Use the 90/90 Rule
The 90/90 rule comes from living a minimalist lifestyle. The way the theory works is when you’re decluttering and trying to figure out whether or not you should keep or get rid of something, ask yourself if you’ve used that item in the past 90 days. If you haven’t, then ask yourself if you will use that item in the next 90 days… if you won’t then it’s safe to go ahead and get rid of that item, whether you throw it away, donate it, or sell it. This rule alone will help you make a small space feel much bigger.
Sell Your Items
If you’re going to get rid of your items, you might as well make money off of them! There are several platforms that you can use to sell your items too. You, of course, have your basic yard and garage sales where you can lay everything out on display, but you have to make sure you set everything up properly in order to profit from your garage sale. There are also apps that allow you to simply take pictures of the items you want to sell, and post them for other users of that app to see.
People can search for certain items based on the item name, price, and location of the seller. Just as you can sell on these apps, you can also get paid through the app as well, so the money will either go to your banking account or card of your choice, or you can have it go to an app that accepts payments such as PayPal. The hard part is definitely letting go of the items you’ve had for so long, but the blow is lessened when you can make a little money from it… like they say, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
