When you start feeling inspired to declutter your life, it can be so tempting to just jump right into it. Maybe you’ve just read a really amazing book about getting rid of clutter, found a gorgeous minimalist Instagram account, or come across a blogger who shares how their life has changed after simplifying their home. Suddenly you look around at all your stuff and your hands just itch to start tossing things into rubbish bags.
However, when we jump straight into decluttering without a
plan, we often end up running into obstacles that we could have avoided with
just a little forethought and planning, such as where do I put all the
discarded stuff? My small charity shop has no room to take the vast amount of
donations I have brought them!
So, before you start decluttering, take a few minutes to do
these three things first:
1. Ensure you have a Clear Vision of What You Want to Accomplish
If you don’t know where you’re going with your decluttering
project, it’s easy to get lost along the way.
Think about it in terms of a holiday.
Yes, being in a foreign country is great, but if you don’t have a map to
guide you, you're going to get lost - take it from one who has gotten lost
several times as I tried to declutter, it's not fun, so to help you
on your journey I have created an easy to follow the map for you 😊
Having clear goals makes it easier to
make decisions about what to keep and what to discard, keeps you from losing
motivation when the going gets tough and helps you communicate to others in the
household why you’re suddenly getting rid of things you’ve held onto for years - no you’ve not gone and totally lost your mind.
I swear my husband thought I was going cuckoo.
Once you have your vision clearly in mind, I recommend taking it a step further and putting it on paper. This gives you something tangible to revisit when your motivation dwindles. It doesn’t have to be complicated! If you need more help in setting your decluttering goals, I wrote about the process, more in-depth in this post, but you can simply write down words or descriptions of what you hope to accomplish, you could even make sketches or cut pictures out of magazines that help you visualise your goals.
If you’d like a printable worksheet to make it easier to write down your own decluttering goals, be sure to sign up to receive my free Decluttering Workbook
2. Decide What You’ll Do with Your Decluttered Items
There is nothing more frustrating than sorting out all the items
you want to discard…and then not knowing how to remove them from your home. You are so much more likely to put things
back and give up on your project if you can’t get your discarded items out of your
home quickly – Hand up – who is guilty of this one? I certainly was.
You can avoid this obstacle right from the start by doing a little research ahead of time. First, know your options: sell, trade-in, donate, give away, recycle, repurpose, and rubbish. Then you need to give some thought to which options will work best for you personally – check out my 35+ ideal ways to sell, donate, recycle and discard your decluttered items.
Once you have a clear idea in your mind of what will be your best options, you can use the worksheet in the Decluttering Workbook to write your plan down!
3. Have a Roadmap for Your Project
Is there a particular method you want to use, have a look at the 6 popular methods of decluttering to give yourself an idea of which style is more likely to work for you? Perhaps you just simply plan on
working through your house little by little until you’re done? Other questions to ask yourself:
- Will you declutter all day on the weekends or for 15 minutes at a time?
- Do you need to ask for help watching your kids when you want to declutter?
- Will you plan easy meals for the days you’ll work on your project?
- Do you plan on working by category (my recommendation) or room by room?
By having a checklist and a rough idea of how you want to proceed, can help you stay on top of things and avoid being overwhelmed.