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Speed up decluttering your home with these nine simple, tried and tested tips.
HOW TO SPEED UP YOUR DECLUTTER
The thought of starting a big decluttering project can be overwhelming.
One of the most daunting aspects of looking around at the clutter in your home is the feeling that it is going to take you days and weeks to thoroughly declutter it all. In fact, it can seem like it will be an endless task.
But there is a way to nip this mindset in the bud.
There are some simple tips you can follow to speed up decluttering your family home. These tips will have you utterly prepared and laser-focused, to get the job done.
And what’s more, it’s a known fact that having a clutter-free space is great for your health. So you really don’t want to go slow!
Want to know what they are? Read on…
9 tips to speed up decluttering
1. Put time in your diary
Schedule a time to declutter, this way it’s firmly in your diary. Ideally, you should be able to give a whole day over to decluttering.
But if that’s not possible, give yourself at least a two-hour time slot.
2. Give yourself a deadline
Setting yourself a deadline ties in with the first point.
It can be easy to put time in the diary and then just carry on through your allocated time. But the danger with that is that you can end up drawing out the process.
If you can’t devote a whole day to decluttering, then go for shorter bursts that have a clear start time and a clear finish time.
This gives you the motivation to focus and get the job done, rather than stopping to get sentimental or have a play with your clutter!
3. have cleaning products to hand
There is never any shortage of dust or grime in areas that are being decluttered. It’s the nature of the beast. So have cleaning products to hand to clean as you go.
This way you get the sense of completing a section fully, rather than having to go back and clean later.
This is so much more satisfying and a great way to speed up decluttering, which in turn will keep your motivation up.
4. have some temporary storage ready
Sometimes it’s just too hard to know what to do with clutter.
There can be emotional ties or stuff that you aren’t currently using, but worry that you will want in the future.
If you aren’t feeling tough enough to ditch the lot, then have a storage box or two to hand that you can put stuff in, then revisit it later.
It’s amazing how much your attitude to stuff can change if you’ve not set your eyes on it for six months and haven’t missed it.
Just be careful you don’t end up with an attic full of stuff that needs sorting in the future.
That’s not decluttering, that’s storing clutter!
5. have snacks or an easy meal ready
This is particularly pertinent if you are planning a full day of decluttering.
There is nothing worse for breaking your flow than having to stop and prepare food.
It’s also hard to keep a good level of focus if you are super hungry and don’t have anything to hand.
6. donate rather than planning to sell
Yes I know that there can be good money to be made from clutter. Indeed I have a very popular post on ways to make money from selling clutter.
But, even in that post, I make the point that sometimes it’s just better to donate rather than spend time preparing clutter to sell.
If you aren’t desperate for the money and you really just want to get the job done, the easiest thing to do is bag everything up that’s in good enough condition and donate it to your local charity shop.
7. make use of all your saved shopping bags
This is where you can finally make use of those random plastic shopping bags that you couldn’t bear to throw away.
Fill them with stuff for the charity shop.
The charity shop will be able to make use of them, plus you will also have decluttered the cupboard where you stash all your plastic shopping bags.
Win, win!
Side note – I heard a sad thing on the radio last week. The grandson of the guy who invented the plastic bag was saying that his grandad invented the plastic bag as an environmentally friendly creation. It was to stop so many trees being chopped down for paper bags. He never intended for plastic bags to be used in the disposable way they ended up being used for so many years.
8. Tidy up as you finish up
Leave yourself enough time to tidy up at the end of a decluttering session.
There’s nothing worse than leaving a room in a bigger mess than when you started, even if you do plan to go back and finish decluttering the next day.
9. wrap up loose ends
Don’t leave bags full of stuff for the charity shop sitting in your garage or hallway for weeks.
This isn’t decluttering, this is bagging up clutter and moving it to another space!
Give yourself time to get the stuff out of the door and to the charity shop the same day, or at the very least, get time in your diary to do it within a couple of days of your declutter.
Making sure your decluttering efforts are truly complete will give you a true feeling of satisfaction and the motivation you need to keep decluttering in the future.
I really hope you find these tips to speed up decluttering useful. I really do swear by them. I’ve got plenty more decluttering posts if you are in the mood to get your declutter on.
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Hello, I’m Luci, founder of Mums Make Lists (Est. 2011). Over the last decade or so, I have combined my experience as a mum, journalist and shopping editor to create useful guides and lists of ideas and inspiration to make it easier for busy parents to plan and host kids’ parties and find great gifts. Read more.