Dejunking 101: How to Clear Out Your Home Clutter Quickly and Painlessly

Though we love all the stuff we buy and accumulate, it can also drive us nuts with the messy chaos it can create. However determined that you are clearing some of these items out from your home, it can be a daunting task. Therefore, let me share some easy ways that can help speed dejunking to shed those unwanted things painlessly.

Dejunking Works More Easily With a Plan and Schedule

Start making it a practice to sort through paper items like mail, newspapers and magazines immediately instead of letting them to gather on a table, desk or counter without being filed away or discarded. Paper items can pile up before you know it. At the same time, you might forget where you laid something of importance that could get lost or misplaced when more is added to wherever you left it.

A basket or desktop file holder can also come in handy for what you need to keep now to read, to do and to file later. However, promise yourself to deal with all sorting all paper related clutter by the end of the week or risk not accomplishing anything.

Establishing a schedule every few months with a specific date on your calender like a Saturday for the family to devote to removing clutter of what doesn’t fit to something they grew tired of or need can drastically make a difference. To limit complaints of drafted family members, set a kitchen timer for about 45 minutes and have boxes for pending distribution from donating, selling at a flea market, garage sale or sharing with friends or family to repurpose them. Perhaps, you even have a neighbor that you could donate some books for instance that would appreciate the thoughtfulness while helping your dejunking efforts at the same time.

Turn This Needed Work Into a Family Game

Another idea that you might get your family more enthusiastic about this task is to make a game out it for the household to play together. All needed are a box or brown bag and slips of paper. On each slip of paper, write down a small decluttering project and fold so no one sees the task to insert into your box or bag. Each family member grabs a slip with an assigned task. The goal is seeing how many slips each member gets to win a small prize or activity such as going to the movies or an ice cream outing that the family votes on. Incentives always work wonderfully for motivation. Besides, it can be competitive but more fun than you may think.

Instead of trying to juggle too many rooms at once, tackling items from one room at the time is a better idea to avoid confusion, frustration and exhaustion. What I like to do is concentrate in a room such as the bedroom and then further declutter the closet first before moving onto another part of the room. When I finish dejunking the closet, I move on to a dresser, etc. I keep doing this dejunking method until I finish the chore and am ready to tackle another room.

Something else I found helpful is setting up a spot where family members can leave their items that need repaired. I have a wicker basket for clothes needing small repairs such as some missing buttons, hemming, or a broken zipper in one spot. Alongside is a separate box for things that temporarily need to be retired since they need glue or batteries from small household items to toys.

Before the repairs mount up, I examine what items can be saved or thrown out. Doing this as soon as things are added or once a week keeps this organizing process running more smoothly. Waiting too long only delays the inevitable. Either the item is fit for repair or needs parting with the item.

The older that we get, the more items we tend to possess. However, at some point in our lives it is better to start downsizing the clutter gradually instead of letting it consume us or become an expensive self-storage problem.