Whether you’re tired of misplacing items or climbing over piles of toys left across the floor, having a cluttered space can affect us in many ways. Being surrounded by clutter has an impact on how we’re feeling. A 2016 Cornell University study suggests that stress triggered by clutter can impact our coping mechanisms, leading us to eat more junk food, oversleep, and engage in more binge-watching activities. Organizing our space, especially in our homes, can help you create more relaxing environment for yourself. Leverage some of the tips below to get you started on your organizational journey.
Tips for how to declutter your space:
1. Get rid of trash
The first step you should do is to take a garbage bag and throw away that is garbage. Give yourself some momentum by removing any obvious garbage you have laying around, junk mail, rotten foods, delivery packaging and boxes. Create more space for yourself by taking out the garbage.
2. Clear the floors
Bring all the stuff from the floor and put it in the storage baskets according to their use. You can also use labeled storage bins so that you don’t have to remember things eventually.
3. Create some breathing room
Although clothes should be placed into their correct spots like closets and drawers, it’s also important to not overstuff these places. When you have to remove items just to sort and sift through them, it leads to a lot of overflows where clothes will end up on the floor, on chairs, or on top of the dresser. Based on the Pareto Principle, we tend to only wear 20% of the clothes we own and so 80% of it is left hidden and stashed away taking up important space.
4. Arrange your clothes
It’s a very common problem of gen-z that their clothes can be found on the bed, floors or
Everywhere except in the closet. You need to just put the laundry clothes in the water-resistant laundry basket and arrange unused clothes on shelves. If you find it hard, don’t worry you can use foldable fabric bins or hard-sided baskets to easily organize your clothes on the shelves. Cool, right!
5. Straighten your furniture
Aligning your dining room chairs, can help create a neater visual space. Another is aligning your couch and coffee table.
6. Putting things back into place
This is inclusive of both food and things. Boardgames, books, kitchen utensils, shoes, etc. For a variety of things, you can use Multi-Pack Storage bins so that you can differentiate easily. Once you’re done with them, make it a habit to put them back where it needs to go. Clutter piles will begin to build once there is something out of place. Nip the habit in the bud before it starts to spread.
7. Clear the surface areas
This includes your dining tables, workstations, shelves, and table stands. Use baskets to keep items and various knickknacks in one place on top of these surfaces to keep them organized and in one place.
Initializing tiny steps towards organizing will make a big impact on your lifestyle eventually! However, you do not have to, nor is it suggested to do it all at once. Habits are habits because you spend time doing the same repetitive actions daily. If you try to make a big change too quickly, it will most likely not stick. Slowly start building this into your daily routine. Do some decluttering activities 10 minutes a day, which can effectively start to build momentum. With 10 minutes a day, it results to 5 hours a month, and about 50 hours in 300 days!