Who here has a ton of stuff cluttering drawers, shelves, cabinets and boxes around the house? Are you running out of space for new acquisitions? I can, with supreme confidence, say that I possess many things that I probably should have gotten rid of ages ago. However, recently, the sudden urge to clean and get rid of unused, old and outgrown came upon me for some reason. I managed to get rid of tons of old stuff, a lot of which I had even forgotten existed (even more proof that it needed to go). And how exactly did I manage to achieve this wondrous feat? It was actually a lot simpler than it seemed at first. The key is to break it down into small, manageable steps.
The Sorting
This can apply to pretty much everything that you need to clean out or go through. In small sections, follow these steps:
1. Clear a large space on the floor or on a table and take everything off of the shelf/out of the drawer/from wherever you happen to be cleaning.
2. Create five distinct piles:Â Garbage, Recycling, Keepers, Donations and Unsure.
3. Sort all of the items into these categories. Be critical and try to suppress emotional attachment to silly little things unless they really are important to you.
4. Immediately dispose of the Recycling and Garbage piles properly.
5. Put the Donation pile to the side, perhaps in a cardboard box or a garbage bag to be dealt with later.
6. Put the Unsure pile off to the side as well, that way you can revisit it a bit later.
7. Dust off the items in the Keepers pile if necessary and put it back neatly where you got it. You can come back to it later if you feel you need to.
8. Repeat steps 1-7 as needed.
Maximize Your Space
Sometimes creative storage techniques are really all you need. Try a few of these…
1. Buy clear storage bins to put seldom used items away under the bed (if they can fit).
2. Use baskets to make better use of shelf space.
3. Use hanging organizers in closets for scarves, belts and even jewellery to keep clutter off of dressers. Also try a hanging shoe organizer that can hang on the back of your bedroom door (I have one and I literally have 20 pairs of shoes in it).
4. Buy drawer dividers to keep your drawers tidy and streamlined.
5. Use a set of mini drawers to organize items on your desk/work table.
6. Stack things neatly and somewhat tightly on shelved/in cabinets as to not waste space.
A lot of the organizational products I suggested can be found at fairly inexpensive prices at places like Walmart.Â
Reevaluate
1. Return to your Unsure pile and go through it again. If you truly can’t make decisions, ask a sibling, friend or parent to help you out. Sometimes a little push in the right direction is all that you really need.
2. Go back through how you organized things and see if there was something that you could have done better.
3. Marvel in your accomplishment.
It may seem like an arduous task at first, but when you focus and take things slowly, you can find that you have a lot more space than you thought you did! You may also find hidden treasures, lost items and forgotten memories along the way.
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