Admit it! The lockdown isn’t doing much for your home organization skills. For those juggling work, online classes, home chores, and a lot more, it’s no surprise that your wardrobes are untidy, work desks are disorganized, and your kitchen is chaotic. It’s worse if you don’t have house help to assist in daily chores.
Clutter in the home is known to cause varying levels of depression, anxiety, and stress. If this clutter has started to annoy, frustrate or overwhelm you, now is a good time to clear it up and start living in a positive environment!
Shelina Jokhiya from DeCluttr Me shares some quick tips to help you clean up and get organized.
Go Easy – Declutter in an area that is easy to tackle, such as the junk drawer, kitchen, or lounge. The junk drawer is great to do whilst watching tv, most of the items will most probably need to go in the trash bin or recycle. If you do a few cupboards in your kitchen as well, removing out of date food, broken plates, and unusable saucepans, you will find you suddenly have lots of space in your cupboards and countertops. Once decluttered, you can then organize each area easily.
Start Small – Declutter a small area first, such as one drawer. Empty that drawer, sort the items into donate, trash, or keep. Then organize what is being kept back into the drawer. Move onto the next drawer, and then the next, etc., until you have done one room. Do not take everything out of all the drawers and cupboards otherwise, you will have a mountain of stuff (and a major panic attack).
1 in, 2 out – If you have bought two pieces of clothes when venturing to the malls, get rid of items from your wardrobe to make space for these new items. My mantra is: buy 1 item, declutter 2 items. The items out don’t have to be the same as the item’s going in but it would help to ensure there is space for the new item.
Keep a Clutter Bag – If you find an item of clothing that you do not like, doesn’t fit or is just plain horrible; put that item of clothing into the “clutter bag”, which is a large recyclable bag. Once it is full, you can take the bag to one of the charities and donate the items. You can also add any other items you find in the house that you wish to get rid of. You can keep your clutter bag in the storage room, in a cupboard in the kitchen, or in your wardrobe. Also, if you keep filling up the clutter bag, you fulfill the 1 in 2 out rule!
Make smart purchases – Decluttering is a waste of time if you keep replacing your old stuff with new things. Temporarily, ignore the online sales and buy less (ok… only the essentials).
Don’t keep guilt items– You should only have items in your home that you love to look at or use. Declutter those items that you do not like which were bought for you as presents. If you do not want to offend the gift bearer, give them away to a garage or charity sale.
