The pandemic is the ideal opportunity to get rid of items from our houses. Now that we are spending all our time at home, we want to ensure that our homes are a nice place to spend our evenings in, as we cannot go to bars or restaurants or cafes. We also want to be sure that we can spend our work days there, and not be bored by the monotonous routine in our own homes because many offices are closed.
Given this, the main way of making sure our homes are a nice place to be is to ensure they are not too full of dusty old things, and that means decluttering! Here’s how to declutter without letting it overwhelm you, while having fun!
1. Think about what you can get rid of
One way to declutter is by considering what you can get rid of. The most obvious way to do this is to think of what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of. This is the best way of dividing your things; after all, you want a system that is simple and actionable, otherwise you just won’t get down to things. Consider what things you use often or what things you only use every other year. A good guide is to chuck away anything you haven’t used in two years.
… or what you just want to get rid of for the momen
It gets confusing when you start thinking about the fact that you have winter clothes you might not use in summer, but that you still want to keep despite the fact you haven’t touched them for six months of the year. This kind of thing can go into ‘back-storage’ or be kept in boxes under the bed during summer, which is a helpful way of conceptualizing the fact that there are many things you simply don’t use a lot of the time, but don’t want to get in the way for the rest of the time
2. A professional home organizer
Another way to declutter is by getting in a professional home organizer — the kind made famous by TV shows such as The Home Edit. For reasonable rates, they can often redesign your home and help you determine what you can and cannot keep, what should be boxed away, and what should be given to charity.
The key point about home organizers is that they don’t wake up in your house every day and can therefore give an objective view about what can and can’t be kept. They are often extremely ruthless about what you do and do not need, which is ideal since you cannot have too much of a sentimental attachment to your things because you will not be able to get rid of them.
3. Storage outside the home is useful
Considering external storage is another way of removing clutter from the home. One option is to use commercial storage spaces which are common in cities where people may not have a lot of space due to the price of rental. They can often be very low-cost, too, depending how far away you want to keep your things. Garages can be useful spaces, given that many of us now simply store our cars in the driveway or on the road. If you don’t have a garage, something like a portable garage is an excellent option for keeping your things close by but without having to send them elsewhere.
…even if it can feel painful
It can be a difficult decision to move things outside your home, but it’s often the best way of ensuring you have the space you need to do things inside the home. It’s not just a way of enabling you to carry out your daily activities, but it can actually be a way of preserving your mental health, too — there’s a lot of talk about this in psychology. The saying goes that a tidy home is a tidy mind, and it’s not far off!
A final word on decluttering
Decluttering might feel like a very boring job. But the pandemic is the ideal time to be at home and decluttering since many of us are not able to do all the things we used to do outside — especially as the winter weather sets in and the threat of local lockdowns loom. We may be tired of Zoom calls and want to make sure we can use our time wisely. This is where decluttering fits in perfectly with our daily activities.