The Keys To Start Decluttering Your Home

For some reason it seems like the hardest part about decluttering your home is figuring out HOW TO START! If you want to start to declutter your home, you face quite the challenge! It needs to be done, right? You're sick the mess and embarassement, right? You are ready for a change, right? What many people underestimate is that before any tips or techniques are helpful, you need to have the right mind-set about the challenge ahead. Give some thought to the points below, for they will help you get to the point where you can and will actually start decluttering your home!

1. Clearly define your goal. What would your home ideally look like? What are you willing to give up to achieve this goal? Why do you want a de-cluttered home?
2. Be optimistic. Remind yourself of all those old sayings that are cliche but true: "Rome wasn't built in a day" and "The only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time". Do NOT tell yourself that you're too far behind to start anything, or that the project is too big for you.
3. Ask yourself why you are holding onto things. Emotional attachment? Frugal nature? Guilt? If you can determine (even vaguely) what it is that stops you from getting rid of clutter, you will be better able to confront those issues head on and see if they are in fact valid.
4. Analyze what stops you from putting things away immediately. Distractions? Laziness? No easily-accessible place for mail to be filed once you open it? Lack of adequate storage containers, shelves, or cupboards?
5. Consider your strengths. Decide what method or plan of attack may best suit you. Do you enjoy crossing completed tasks of your to-do list? Do you think you might enjoy a timed approach where you dedicate a specific amount of time to sorting and de-cluttering each day? Or would you be intrigued by the idea of having a "De-Clutter My Home" weekend where you allow no distractions and get as much done as possible in one long stretch?

Once you have thought these through, congratulations! You are one step closer to getting your home clutter-free! Mentally you are prepared for a big challenge! Now you are ready to start looking for practical tips to declutter your home!

Take A Declutter Challenge Today!

One MORE week has now gone by... and it is time to begin the Decluttering Challenge! Wouldn't it be great to be able to come home to a clean, tidy, peaceful house? Wouldn't it be fantastic to be cooking in a kitchen where all your utensils are where they ought to be, and where your countertops sparkle and beg to be filled with fresh cookies instead of clutter? Give yourself a Declutter Challenge today! What is a Decluttering Challenge, you ask? Simply put, it is a challenge you give yourself (and/or your family and friends) to get a large part of your home clutter-free in a prespecified time frame. And it WORKS!

The 30 Day DeClutter Challenge

One type of challenge is termed the 30 Day Declutter Challenge, and the idea is that on each one of the 30 days of the month you decluttering one object or section of your house, great or little. The things can vary from the middle shelf in your bedroom closet to your son's old sports equipment in your work shop, from your sock drawer to the stationery collection that gets stuffed in the spare room closet. The bottom line is to be practical with your task assignment. Assigning "put photos accumulated from the last 4 years into photo albums" most likely won't be able to be accomplished in a single afternoon, but possibly "sort out the photographs into piles or envelopes by the occasion or person and throw out of photographs you don't need to keep" COULD be done!
Once your chores have been assigned, think about arranging for yourself a reward to look ahead to as soon as your 30 Day Challenge ends successfully! Yes, having a much less cluttered house will be a reward in itself, you can not deny that we tend to give more energy to our work if we have something tangible to gain from our pains!

The One Week Declutter Challenge

A different kind of challenge will call for you to assign one full week to your project. This will be a genuine "no one can distract me" week during which you free your schedule in order to reclaiming what once wsa your decluttered house. Assign yourself one room of the house for each day, close yourself within it so to speak, and go crazy! Garbage bags, boxes for donations and re-sell, and obviously some basic cleaning supplies are going to be your necessities. Pull your significant other, your girlfriends, or your children into the challenge! The bigger your assistance, the bigger your accomplishment!
Perhaps you'll need to scale back and assign yourself a One Week Office Declutter Challenge, or a One Week Basement Declutter Challenge. Don't let that bother you! By committing yourself for seven days (and seriously, what is 7 days on the whole), and you will without a doubt bring order back to a good part of your chaotic house!

The 2010 in 2010 Declutter Challenge

This type of Decluttering Challenge is a favorite. Commit yourself to decluttering (by selling, throwing out, or donating) 2010 items throughout the year 2010. Sounds unreasonable? If you do the math though, it really is not as bad as it sounds. 2010 divided into 365 days is only 5.5 items per day. Look around you... the junk drawer, the cupboard under the stairs, your closet, the storage shed... that doesn' t seem impossible, does it? Tick off your success on your calendar, and watch the clutter disappear!
Yet one more way one can do the 2010 DeClutter Challenge is to commit 2010 minutes specifically to decluttering! That is 33.5 hours.... A lot until you consider that there are actually 8,760 hours in one year! That's not even one 45 minute session per week! And yet 2010 minutes is enough to get a LOT decluttered!

So, the "30 Day Declutter Challenge", the "One Week Declutter Challenge", and the "2010 in 2010 Declutter Challenge"... three amazing ways to begin decluttering your house! Which challenge will you do?


Want to learn more? Want more information on how to take a Decluttering Challenge? Click the link! The final outcome of ANY OF THEM will be a much less cluttered home - a place where you will like being, like hosting others, and like living! Also visit http://www.declutterdiva.info" for some additional great decluttering tips!

Clutter Organizing: Three Tips That I Found Most Helpful!

If you're anything like me, your clutter has become your enemy lately. You HATE it. It drives you crazy. Frustrating and ugly clutter! Organizing the chaos and getting rid of clutter in your house has become a nightmare... no matter how hard you try, it grows and grows, and it’s getting embarrassing to have guests over. You need some help with your clutter. Organizing tips and ideas on how to get your house neat and tidy again are numerous, but here are my personal favorite tips on how to get rid of clutter and say hello to a beautiful home!

1. Fight emotional and psychological attachment to items you never use, and probably never will. An example? In the back of my jam-packed kitchen cupboards was a collection of brand new Tupperware bowls I bought years ago (the kind with the lids that are super kid-friendly). They are lovely and practical, and above all, I knew I had paid some nice coin for them. BUT, they didn’t match my dishes set, so I never used them. (I know, silly, isn’t it?) As I was decluttering the other day, I came across them and tried to justify keeping them. I couldn’t. Even though I had paid quite a bit for them, they were not doing me any good; if fact, they were wasting my precious storage space. My sister was overjoyed to take them off my hands when I offered them to her, as they were perfect for her young daughter’s meals. I felt so proud of myself! I made my sister happy, and, I convinced myself to part with some of the clutter that I really didn’t need!
   


2. Use a system to clear the clutter. Organizing your desk, your home office, your kitchen, your closet – whatever you are organizing, make sure that you don’t put the items back randomly after you’ve sorted through what you’re keeping, and what you’re chucking. Use a system to keep things organized. What works for me in my office is a simple filing cabinet, with folders for everything imaginable... and placing that filing cabinet right by where I usually sort my mail!
   


3. Force yourself to get into the habit of immediately putting stuff away after you have used it. Clutter grows at such an incredible rate that if you don’t stay on top of it, you will suddenly turn around one day and realize your house is simply FULL of clutter! Organizing your house so that there are practical and easily-accessible storage containers, boxes, and the like is one of the ways you can make it easy on yourself to keep the clutter level consistently low. What I do? To keep my vanity area clutter-free, I purchased several decorative boxes that I keep on shelves right next to it, each with its own purpose. Before I leave my vanity each morning, I quickly toss whatever is left on the countertop where it belongs, and good-bye clutter!
   

There are many ways to deal with the clutter. Organizing your home to maximum space and minimize clutter can be a challenge, but by 1) convincing yourself to part with items, 2) using a systemized approach to clutter organizing, and 3) getting into the habit of tidying up right away, you will be well on your way to having a lovely, tidy home, one of which you will NOT be embarrassed!

Declutter Tips For Moms!

Declutter Tips For Moms ... just what you need! If you’re a mom, you know how busy your life can get running after your child/children, keeping your house tidy, carrying a part-time-job (or full time), preparing varied yet delicious meals, and the list goes on and on. It’s amazing, isn’t it, how quickly your house can look like tornado went through it! You told yourself before your first child was born that your house would NEVER become one of “those houses” where you raised your eye-brows upon entering at the clutter and toys everywhere, but lately, you stand in your own door way and shutter at the mess before you! Read the declutter tips for moms below, and take heart... it’s not impossible to once again achieve that clutter-free sanctuary called home!

1. Have a conversation with your partner, children, and whoever else calls your house home. Acknowledge that a cluttered home is rarely the result of only one person, and rarely will one person be able to fix the problem alone. If you take a few minutes to explain that what you want and that you could use their help, you can go a long way to getting to that point. Encouraging and persuading will get you much further than nagging and being accusing.
2. Start with small, achievable goals for your family. Aim to clear one area and get yourself and your kids in the habit of ensuring it stays completely clutter free. This is your Clutter-Free Zone. (It can be a counter, your kitchen table, the parlor, or the three-foot perimeter around the couch in your den – whatever you and the kids decide.) Have your kids help you ensure it stays clutter-free by enlisting their help monitoring the “Clutter-Free Zone”, and ensuring that nothing can be placed there that’s not actually in use.
3. Teach your kids where things belong. If you teach your kids where things go, and start teaching them the habit of putting them there, your house will begin to look much more organized. Declutter tips for Moms who are rather messy themselves… set an example and get into the habit yourself, and be very patient! Your kids (and you) may not learn the habit overnight, but the patience and effort will be WELL worth it!
4. Hold a garage sale! Get your kids involved in planning a garage sale with the proceeds from their own items going into their own piggy-banks. Set aside some time to help them sort through their toys, clothes and other “belongings” to determine what they don’t use, have too many of, don’t like, or hasn’t been looked at in years.
5. Work with your kids to create a “maybe” box. Your child may know exactly what can and can-not be trashed, sold, or donated, but there will also be items that your child isn’t to certain about, or that he/she can’t bear to get rid of just yet! So, create a “maybe” box for these items. Then store the box out of site for 6 months (put a note on your calendar), and when you do pull it out again, have your child see if there is in there that he/she really missed, and act accordingly.
6. Implement the Pre-Dinner Pick-Up Plan (Also works with Pre-Bedtime, or Pre-Movie Watching, etc.) Before dinner is served each evening, assign different areas for you and the kids to pick up. For example, you could take a basket into the living room, pick up everything that doesn’t belong there and take the items to the proper rooms. Your kids can put the toys in the play room (and any that have drifted into the hall) back into their proper places. If you enforce this routine for a month (and yes, your part too), soon it will become habit! Your call of “dinner in 10 minutes” will soon mean “start cleaning up”!
7. Build a Rewards System. Get yourself a sheet of small stickers, and for every day your child keeps his/her room organized, he/she gets a sticker. 7 consecutive stickers equals a prize, but so do 15 non-consecutive ones (so that occasional bad days are “forgiven” without whipping out the progress). Declutter tips for Moms whose own bedrooms and rooms are a disaster? 1) Create a reward system for yourself! You know what you like, and be strict enough with yourself to follow through! 2) Give yourself “Demerit Points” for times you fall off your de-clutter plan! 10 Demerit points means you can’t ___ (you fill in the blank.) 3) If you’re brave and have kids that won’t do this disrespectfully, have them be your “judges”.
8. Get the family involved. Perhaps your kids don’t put away their toys “properly” because they have trouble reaching the proper shelf, they can’t remember where the particular toy is supposed to go, or because it just doesn’t make sense to them to put it there. (For example, a car-mat complete with a village and train tracks may not make sense to your son to be put in a box on a shelf in the closet when he’s not playing with it. Get your son’s advice on where it should be put (his own version of declutter tips for moms), because he will only keep up with what makes sense to him.

Children are a blessing, yes, but their mess is often aggravating and stress-inducing, especially when a neighbor drops by expectantly. We tend to feel embarrassed that our houses are full of clutter and wish there was a way to turn out cluttered homes into peaceful and orderly havens. The above clutter help for busy moms are hopefully 8 places you can start to get that back! You can do it!