How to Declutter Your House
These are not traditional cleaning tips like how to have a dust-free house in under 10 minutes. I don’t know how to do that. Please send me suggestions if you know how to have a dust-free home in under 10 minutes.
A better title for this would have been creative ways to pretend to clean or turn tedious tasks into things you love.
A coworker mentioned that they had been trying to buy nothing new for three months. I’m not a big shopper, but I apply the rule of one thing in, one thing out. Sometimes this rule seems simple, get a new shirt, donate one that you no longer like or wear, and other times, it forces you to problem-solve. We are renovating our house, which means new cupboards, lights, drywall, and paint continue to arrive, moving me to be creative about what to get rid of.
My favorite way to approach the one-thing-out rule is to think about it like a creative prompt.
Prompts:
- Can I write a card and send it to a friend? That card is one thing out.
- Can I make a gift and send it to a friend? That might be one thing or multiple things, depending on how much I used to make that gift.
One thing out doesn’t mean that the thing needs to be thrown in the trash or donated. Instead, it can become a fun way to prompt you to create and think about how you can surprise friends.
Examples:
I made 15 menus (15 pieces of paper) for an event, and so in my mind, that counts as 15 things out, which was vital because I ordered 50 postcards which are 50 things in, but I gave away 20 postcards so if you do the math I’m getting close.
I’m not keeping a running list or chart that tracks the number of things that came into the house; therefore, the number of things that have to go. I’m also not stopping everything I’m doing when a package arrives and scouring the house to figure out what I can remove.
It’s a mindset shift that helps me to think about the things and the objects that I bring into the home and the things and the objects that leave home. I don’t take this to the extent that if there is nothing I want to get rid of or I don’t have time to create, I stress myself out.
This post does not contain cleaning tips; it might not be about cleaning. It’s about mindset shifts. How do you take something you don’t enjoy or that you’re not good at doing and shift it closer to what you want?
This philosophy started for me years ago when I realized every time that I attempted to clean it ended in me creating. I would decide I needed to make new curtains, pillows, or a rug. Instead of deciding that I was a failure at cleaning, I shifted to thinking about how to embrace the inspiration that cleaning seems to supply.