How to Declutter Without Getting Overwhelmed

I like looking at beautiful homes. In pictures. In person. In movies and tv shows. We like to visit those parade of homes shows and I have hard bound books of lovely homes. One thing I always notice is the nice clear spaces. They make a huge difference in how you view a home.

When we begin the process of making our homes a lovely peaceful space to be in we start with all that stuff that disturbs the peace. The clutter.

It can be overwhelming if you just look around at all the clutter. It can be debilitating and crippling. And we want to avoid that. So in this post we will talk about how to deal with your clutter, because that's one of the first steps, without becoming overwhelmed.

Let me tell you a little story…

A few years ago my husband came home with a new idea. We (the whole family) would spend 15 minutes each night decluttering and cleaning up our home.

We didn't have a method but we would just spend 15 minutes doing something in the decluttering department.

Now our home was/is neat…on the surface. But like any family we have stuff that we don't need. Things we've outgrown. Items taking up space in various areas of the house and things that we should have disposed of a long time ago. Everyone in the family is at fault here.

My husband just wanted to dive in but I persuaded him to follow a little bit more of a plan.

I suggested that we set up some boxes, all work in the same room at the same time, and be sure and dispose of things the next day (we did the decluttering in the evenings).

Preparations

We started by creating a set of bags/boxes.

• 1. Giveaway
• 2. Put Away
• 3. Throw away

I'm sure you've heard of those before. I made signs. I like making signs.

Our Steps

We all work together in each room because a few us who shall remain nameless have a habit of tossing everything but our own clutter.

We worked after dinner. Kind of like a family meeting.

I set the timer so we didn't go over 15 minutes.

Every nook and cranny of our home was worked on.

We started in the Master Bedroom

Outcome

Did we make headway? Yes! By golly we did! This all happened right before we needed to move. And that was a fiasco that interrupted our momentum. A story for another time.

We all had jobs to do. Mostly I pulled things out into the hallway or the center of the room. Well kind of when through the stuff.  Our daughter, Sweet Peanut manned the timer, organized the bags/boxes, and placed the items in the correct bags/boxes. Dear Hubby took the items to the donation spot on his way to work.

Finish goal?  My husband said it took us about 30 days. We worked every day. But only 15 minutes. Very doable.

How You Can Do this Low Stress Decluttering Method

• Don't over think it.
• Pick a small room to start
• Grab 3 boxes, bins, or baskets. Leftover Amazon boxes, some grocery bags, things like that. Set them up off to the side.
• Set your time for 15 minutes
• Wherever you decided to start clear that space off or out completely. If that takes up the 15 minutes then you're done for the day. Before you leave that room look at that space you just cleared. Isn't it lovely? We don't want to add too much back to it.
• When the timer goes off you're done for the day.
  • Toss the garbage
  • Make plans to drop off the giveaway stuff
  • Turn out the light and walk away.
• The next day start the decluttering process. All the items you removed from the space go through and toss, place in the box to giveaway, or organize into categories.

What happens if you miss a day? Don't look back. Only look forward. Sure there will be days when you just don't get to it. The idea is not to stop. Just keeping going. There is a light at the end of that clutter tunnel.