Author: pnwtechlife

The 12 Month Declutter Challenge!

Decluttering your home sounds overwhelming right? What if you could spread out the process over the course of a year? With the 12 month declutter challenge, you can do just that! With the 12 month declutter challenge, you can tackle clutter systematically, one space at at a time.

What is the 12 month declutter challenge?

The 12 month declutter challenge is designed to be a transformative journey to help you declutter and organize your home without overwhelming yourself. In the process, you can create a more serene and functional living space.

By dedicating just a little time each month to decluttering, you can achieve significant results and enjoy the benefits of a clutter-free space. The benefit of doing it this way is that you don’t have to tackle the entire house at once. You don’t even have to tackle an entire space at one time. You can tackle it over the course of the month!

While I know a lot of people love to start this in January, this can be started at any time. Personally I like to start this in late winter or early spring because it’s dark and dreary outside and I have more motivation to clean out in the house where I’m stuck. So let’s dive into the challenge!

Month 1: Wardrobe Clean-out.

For the first month of the 12 month declutter challenge, focus on decluttering your wardrobe. This means sorting through your clothing, your shoes, and accessories. 

This is a great opportunity to get rid of clothing that is worn out, faded, or no longer fits you. If there are items that you haven’t worn in a long time, this is the perfect opportunity to get rid of it. 

Don’t be afraid to donate, sell, or just throw away things that you don’t wear or love. Just because you spent money on something or because someone gave it to you, doesn’t mean you have to keep it. 

Month 2: Kitchen Organization

For month 2 of the 12 month declutter challenge, it’s time to tackle your kitchen. You are going to tackle a few different areas here: countertop, the pantry, the cabinets, and the drawers.

I recommend tackling each of these areas in their own small sections throughout the month rather than trying to do it all at once. Otherwise, it’s going to get very overwhelming, very fast. I also recommend that you do them in the following order:

Countertop

Start with the countertops. This is going to be the place where you most visually are going to see a difference. To keep motivated, you want to declutter where you will see a difference.

Get rid of anything that shouldn’t be there or doesn’t get used. This includes things like trash, small appliances that don’t get used, decorations that you don’t like or are difficult to clean, and anything that detracts from the overall look of your kitchen.

Pantry

Next, tackle the pantry. Get rid of all expired food items. If you’ve got stuff in there that you are never going to eat, consider donating it to a food bank. This is a good time to go through your canned food and make sure that it hasn’t gone bad. 

Cabinets

The cabinets should be third on your list. I do these after the countertops and the pantry because otherwise you get the temptation to just shove those things from the countertop into your newly decluttered cabinet space.

In your cabinets, get rid of things you don’t like or don’t use. You probably don’t need 25 coffee mugs. I chose to get rid of a bunch of plates and dishes that we never used but ‘they look nice’. Looking nice wasn’t enough to justify the space in the cupboard. Anything chipped or broken should be disposed of.

Drawers

Be prepared, the drawers are probably going to take up the most time of anything. Use this time to get rid of single purpose kitchen utensils that never get used. For example, we didn’t need a banana slicer, a knife works just fine.

If you’ve got things that are broken, rusting, worn out, or you have tons of duplicates of, get rid of them. I realized we had 11 baking sheets. Now some of them served specific purposes but many of them were just old and gross looking. We reduced it down to 6, keeping the 2 general purpose ones, the 2 that I use specifically for cookies, and the 2 we use for grilling.

Month 3: Do the Paperwork Purge

For the third month of the 12 month declutter challenge, it’s time to do the paperwork purge.

If you are lucky, you’ve got all this contained to a specific section of the house. If you are unlucky like me, it was spread through several rooms depending on where we could find quiet time to get things done while the kids were napping.

Sort through bills, receipts, and files, and shred or recycle any unnecessary paperwork. I also like to use this time to scan in any files that are ‘nice to have’ but I don’t need physical copies of. 

Month 4: Living Room Refresh

For month four of the 12 month declutter challenge, declutter your living room. If you have excess furniture, get rid of it. Declutter those old electronics that you never use and are just collecting dust.

If you’ve got decorations you don’t like, donate or sell them. This is also a good time to get rid of an extraneous physical media that you don’t use anymore like CDs, DVDs, or Blu-Ray discs. 

Declutter until you’ve made your living room into a cozy and inviting space, leaving only things that have a purpose or that you enjoy.

Month 5: The Bathroom Makeover

For the fifth month of the 12 month declutter challenge, you are going to declutter your bathroom. Or bathrooms depending on how many are in the house. 

If you have expired or empty toiletries, get rid of them. This includes things like old lotions, shampoos, creams, expired medicine, and makeup. 

If you have old towels that you don’t like using, get rid of those too. Leave only the ones you like or use.

Organize each drawer and cabinet so that everything is easily found and accessible.

Month 6: The Bedroom Retreat

For month six of the 12 month declutter challenge, it’s time to turn your bedroom into a relaxing retreat. 

Clean out any storage you have under the bed so that it only contains what needs to be there. Get rid of old bedding you never use. Declutter your bedside table so that they look nice and only contain the essentials.

If you’ve got extra furniture in your bedroom that you never use, like that chair that only seems to collect laundry, get rid of it. 

Create a serene sleep environment by keeping only the things you need in the bedroom and nothing else.

Month 7: Home Office Cleanup

For month seven of the 12 month declutter challenge, declutter your home office. If you don’t have a home office, this might be an easy month for you. Instead use this time to take care of the space where you computer is or where you generally do any kind of administrative work for your home like paying bills.

For this month, organize any paperwork you might have. Since you did a paperwork purge a few months earlier, you should have less to organize at this point. 

If you have electronics that you never use, get rid of them. If you have random cables for things that you aren’t sure what they are for, get rid of those too. If you haven’t used them by now, you probably never will. 

For the rest of the cables, make sure they are organized and bundled together to look neat and tidy. I use Velcro cable ties, but twist ties will often work just as well.

At the end of the day, you want your home office area to be a functional workspace that promotes productivity and creativity.

Month 8: The Great Closet Overhaul

For month eight of the 12 month declutter challenge, it’s time to tackle your closets.

Take the opportunity to go through every closet in your home. Clear out any seasonal clothing. Get rid of old shoes you don’t wear. Declutter those shoe racks and get rid of those uncomfortable shoes you never wear. Organize your accessories for easy access.

Month 9: Storage Space Simplification

For month 9 of the 12 month declutter challenge, we will take on storage space. This means, places like the garage, the attic, the basement, or that one closet you avoided last month because it’s a storage space rather than an actual closet.

Get rid of anything that is broken. If you’ve got unused or duplicate items, sell or donate them. This is also a good opportunity to declutter decorations you don’t like or don’t use. 

Month 10: Sentimental Items

For month ten of the 12 month declutter challenge, it’s time to go through Sentimental items.

These are things like keepsakes, photos, and memorabilia. Especially if you’ve traveled a lot, you may have a lot of random touristy things you’ve picked up over the years. Get rid of items that you don’t really care about. Only keep things that hold significant meaning or bring you joy.

Month 11: Digital Clutter

For month eleven of the 12 month declutter challenge, we are going a bit more abstract and we are going to get rid of digital clutter.

Digital clutter needs management just as much management as your home. Use this month to organize and clear out files on your computer. 

On your phone, evaluate the apps that you use and get rid of ones that you don’t ever use. If you are like me, you probably have a million tabs open on your phone. Close them out and only keep open the ones you need.

This is also a great opportunity to clear out and unsubscribe from any email newsletters you don’t want clogging your inbox.

Month 12: Final Touches and Maintenance

Wrap up the declutter challenge by completing any remaining tasks and implementing maintenance routines to keep clutter at bay. Set aside time each month for regular decluttering and organization to maintain a clutter-free home.

Final Thoughts!

12 months is a long time to be working on decluttering, but you did it! Congratulations on completing the 12 Month Declutter Challenge! By dedicating just a little time each month to decluttering and organizing, you’ve transformed your home into a more serene and functional living space. Enjoy the benefits of a clutter-free environment and continue to maintain your organized home for years to come. Cheers to a happier and more organized life!

7 Steps to Declutter your Bedroom Fast!

In just 7 steps, you can declutter your bedroom fast and live a less cluttered and more organized life!

Is your bedroom a cluttered mess? Growing up, mine was, but it didn’t have to be. I eventually figured out how to tame the clutter and I want to help you declutter your bedroom too!

With my bedroom being the only space I could contain all of my stuff and keep it away from my siblings and have me time, my room was usually a mess. Especially since my room was the smallest one in the house. Not quite Harry Potter closet under the stairs small, but it wasn’t big. 

Declutter Your Bedroom? Why is it so hard!?

If you have a messy bedroom, trying to declutter your bedroom can seem like a daunting task. Especially if you have a lot of stuff in a small space. Quite often when I see people with cluttered bedrooms, they have too much stuff, a lack of organization, and even clothing on the floor.

This makes for a frustrating place to live. It’s not good for your mental health and quite frankly it causes a lot of people stress just thinking about the idea of having to clean it up.

The more stuff you have in your room, the messier it looks, the more difficult it will seem mentally to clean it up. I assure you, this is purely a mental blocker. Actually decluttering your bedroom is easy!

Step 1: Assess The Situation.

The first thing you will want to do is assess the situation. Why do you want to declutter your bedroom? What is it that is making your bedroom seem cluttered?

Is it that you have large furniture in there? Do you have laundry that needs to be put away? Are your shelves overflowing with stuff? Do you have stuff on the floor?

Make a list of the problem areas in your room and divide it up into sections so that we can tackle them.

Step 2: Get rid of the garbage. 

Now if you are lucky, you don’t have any garbage in your room. Consistently having garbage in my room that wasn’t confined to a trash bin would probably be grounds for divorce in our house.

But let me tell you, it’s not uncommon. I was a slob growing up. I grew up with hoarders and it took a lot for me to break from their habits and form my own.

As it turns out, the ability to walk through my room without stubbing my toe on things is something I really value. If you’ve got garbage in your bedroom, start by getting rid of it. 

Now when I say garbage, there are a couple different kinds. First is the kind like candy wrappers on the ground. Hopefully you aren’t that big of a slob. Maybe you are and no judgement, I’ve been there.

There were a few times when I had to throw out old bags from fast food restaurants growing up because it was growing something unidentifiable because I’d gotten so lazy I just didn’t bother to throw it in the garbage. So if you have that type of stuff, start there.

The second type of garbage is things that you really don’t need but aren’t purely trash. Things that can be recycled, trashed, or donated.

For example, I used to do a lot of my computer hobby work in my bedroom before I got a home office. Due to that, I had busted computer parts, notebooks full of things I’d written down for my computers and things I was trying to figure out, old electronics. It was a lot.

So as I started decluttering garbage, I started getting rid of those types of things with reckless abandon. I had to be honest with myself. No, that hard drive with the bad sectors is never going to be useful again. I don’t need a Network switch from 15 years ago that will bottleneck my entire network.

Now granted, I’m using computers as my hobby here, but whatever hobby you have can fit in that same space just as well be it photography, playing RPGs, or knitting.

Just make sure you get rid of that garbage and you will go a long ways in the process of decluttering your bedroom.

Step 3: Identify Things That Don’t Belong There

This is common whenever you are decluttering. Things tend to show up in various spots that don’t belong there and then they just kind of live there…forever.

Case in point, there was a screwdriver that was living in my home office for the better part of a month. It didn’t belong there. I’d been using it to replace one of the drives on my home server and then the kids woke up and I forgot to take it back downstairs where it belonged. Every day I looked and it was still there. Things like that happen…a lot.

So it’s up to you when you declutter your bedroom, to look through your clutter and put things back in their proper home. Immediately. Don’t pass go. Don’t collect $200, just put anything that is out of place in its proper home.

Step 4: Identify Reoccurring Problems

Now I call this reoccurring problems because it could encompass a lot of things. But lets face it, most of the time this reoccurring problem is laundry. People hate doing laundry. I hate doing laundry.

There was a period in my life where I would do my laundry, dump it on my bed so that my laundry basket was empty, then I’d move it from the bed to my chair so I could sleep in the bed, then from the chair back to the bed so I could use the chair.

Repeat until the laundry was all back in the basket and needed to be washed again. I’m not proud of that and it was not efficient. So I made a rule. When I did laundry, it got put away as soon as I pulled it out of the dryer no matter what. Every single time.

Reoccurring problems are most often the cause of not budgeting your time to do something. Whether that is because you don’t want to do it or you find other stuff to do, like rush off to work.

It all has to do with time management. The solution to reoccurring problems is scheduling. I can hear you groaning now, but this really does work.

Much in the same way that I schedule myself to do dishes and reset the kitchen and living room every night, I schedule myself to clean up problem areas in my bedroom. Once a week, the laundry gets done and I always throw it on the bed. Old habits die hard right?

The difference is now as soon as it lands on the bed, I start folding and hanging it. I realized that I can generally get my laundry and my wife’s laundry folded and hung in about 10 minutes. 15 if I make the folding really nice.

The kids laundry is another 20-30 minutes because toddlers go through a ton of clothes. In any event, I have this time built into my weekly schedule to fold the laundry and suddenly that problem area is gone! I no longer have to worry about piles of laundry when I declutter my bedroom!

But that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be other problem areas. I used to pay bills in my bedroom so there was always a pile of mail. Again, scheduling time to get rid of the mail fixed the issue. Schedule! Schedule! Schedule! Scheduling is a key part of the maintenance process to declutter your bedroom and keep it that way!

Step 5: Remove Large Useless Items

I’ve caught some flak from people on this before, but it’s time for real talk. That treadmill that is in your bedroom and hasn’t been turned on for 3 years. It’s time for it to go.

If you’ve got large items that really don’t serve a purpose in your bedroom anymore, don’t be afraid to get rid of them. Just because they might be nice things, don’t get pulled into sunk costs. It’s time to live in the now.

I called out the treadmill because I was having a conversation with someone just last week where they were complaining that the treadmill in their bedroom took up so much room but they hadn’t used it in years. Realistically if you haven’t used it in a year, you aren’t likely to start now. Get rid of it.

That chair, do you ever use it or does it just collect laundry and jackets? If it never gets used for its intended purpose, it’s time for it to go. You’d be amazed at how much you can declutter your bedroom and free up space just by getting rid of large things.

Step 6: Take Advantage of Existing Storage

If things are out and about and you don’t want to look at them, take advantage of the existing storage in your room. I started keeping my headphones and a few other items in a drawer on my nightstand because I don’t like the clutter of looking at them.

This visually cleaned up my nightstand so that it only had things in that I wanted there and nothing extra. For my watches and watch bands, I didn’t need those out. So I hid them away in a drawer.

Anything that didn’t need to be out and I knew I wanted to keep, I found homes for. Even if that meant displacing something I cared about less so that item could find a home. Focus on visual things when you declutter your bedroom, then find homes for them in your existing storage.

Step 7: Let Things Go

This is the hardest step. You’ve cleared out a bunch of stuff already, you’ve made more room, but you’ve still got a bunch of stuff and it still looks like you need to declutter your bedroom.

If you are still above your clutter threshold, it’s time to start letting things go. I like to use the container method for this. I had too many books for my bookshelf so I went through them and used the shelf as a container for them. I only allowed myself to keep the books that would fit on the shelf and everything else had to go.

The solution was not to go out and get more shelves. That would only serve to make the room look more cluttered. Remember, the goal is to declutter your bedroom, not make it more cluttered. Use the space you have to your advantage to help yourself cull down the items in your bedroom.

Make the container is your enemy. So if things don’t fit in there, it’s not your fault, it’s the container’s. Now I love hats. I have a few dozen ranging from beanies to top hats. I was running out of room.

So when I was decluttering, I only had room for 20 of my hats. I put the hats in their home based on what ones I wanted to keep and I had 5 leftover. 5 hats that I really liked.

I liked them better than some of the other hats up on the shelf, so I swapped them out. The 5 that were left, I got rid of. Not because I didn’t like the hats, but because there were others I liked better and I didn’t have room for them all.

The container was the enemy and I put the blame of me getting rid of extra hats on that container, which made me feel better about my decision.

Some things you just need to take a hard look at and ask yourself if they provide any value to your life that they are worth the space. Are you holding on to it because it was an expensive gift?

Maybe you liked it at the time and you don’t care about it now. Prices others paid and just because you’ve had it a long time aren’t good reasons to keep it. Take a picture of it if you really want to remember it, then get rid of it if you don’t like it.

Think about your present you and not who you were in the past or the future you. That will keep you grounded to only keep things that you care about. Elsa was right. Let it go.

Once you’ve completed these 7 steps, your room should be looking better. You can’t organize your way into a less cluttered room. So when you declutter your bedroom, only you can decide if the room is still cluttered or not. 

4 Steps You Can Take Immediately To Declutter Your Living Room!

Your family room doesn’t have to be a mess. In 4 steps I will help you to declutter your living room.

The Living Room. The Family Room. Whatever you want to call it, this is the place where you spend time with your family. Where you entertain, where you bond and make memories.

So when this room is a cluttered mess, it really messes with your head. Trust me. I get it. While I would never expect this room to be spotless, if it’s got too much going on then it becomes less of a pleasant place to spend time and more of a headache. In this article I am going to go over some way to declutter your living room and make it more livable.

So How Do You Declutter Your Living Room?

Step 1: Start Small

Seasonal Decoration

As you look around your living space, try to identify small things you can eliminate to make it less cluttered and more of a space you want to live in.

Removing leftover seasonal decorations is a quick and easy way to declutter your living room. When I was going through this process, I was asking myself: why did we still have stuff out from Easter? Easter was a couple months ago. Things like this are an easy fix to declutter your living room by just putting things away to free up space.

Actual Trash

Being that we have two very young kids, trash tends to get left on flat surfaces. If you’ve got kids, you know how it is. If you don’t have kids, then you aren’t aware that they will pick up random things off the ground and call them ‘trash’ and hand them to you.

Or you will be in the middle of opening something for them and then have to sprint across the room to go prevent the other child from getting into something they shouldn’t because you realized someone left something down that they shouldn’t have.

Then that trash gets left behind. These are all easy wins when you are trying to declutter your living room.

Things You Don’t Like

If you’ve got things in your living room that you don’t like, get rid of them! Just because you own something, doesn’t mean you have to keep it. Getting rid of things you dislike can go a long ways towards decluttering your living room.

For example, we had all these ceramic vases and figurines that had been gifted to us. Neither my wife or I liked them and with kids they were increasingly becoming a safety hazard.

They were a ton of small items but eliminating them meant that we suddenly not only had physical space free but we also were a bit more free mentally because we didn’t constantly have to worry about toddlers breaking them.

Blankets and Pillows

Next we tackled blankets and pillows. For whatever reason we collect blankets and pillows whether we mean to or not. And with toddlers they inevitably end up on the floor. Daily.

I realized we don’t need 6 pillows for a single couch. We need 2 tops. So I chose my favorites and the rest went away. Blankets that weren’t in regular use got the same treatment. Folded up and put away, donated, or in the case of some of the really destroyed ones, they went into the trash. If you want to declutter your living room, get rid of all the extra blankets and pillows and just keep what you need.

Kids Toys

Since it’s a living room, there were a ton of toys as well. There is nothing wrong with having kids toys in your living room. It’s a place where the family spends time and interacts together. However, you don’t need every toy in the world in the living room.

So, when you declutter your living room, toys are easy to eliminate. I spent an evening after the kids went to bed and cleared out a ton of toys that were no longer age appropriate for them and that they never played with.

I was lucky that our neighbors down the street had new grandchildren and were looking for toys in the age range of stuff we were getting rid of and they eagerly took them off my hands. But donation places or your local buy nothing groups work just as well.

Dog Toys

Don’t underestimate how many dog toys you may have when you are decluttering your living room. I made it a point to go through the dog’s toys and eliminated a bunch of things that they had absolutely destroyed.

Our dogs don’t need more toys than our kids. I wasn’t about to get rid of my dog’s favorite toys, but they certainly didn’t need that 10 year old dog toy that looked like it had been through a trash compactor twice.

Other Items

Other things we eliminated were puzzles, games, candles, mail, and random things that had never made it back to their actual home. When you declutter your living room, get things back to their proper home.

Clearly we had an issue with putting things away at night which is something we figured out how to accommodate with daily schedules. All these small things that were just taking up space in our living room were leading to additional stress and making our home look cluttered. These were easy things to get rid of to make the living room more livable.

Step 2: Tackle Your Stressers

Once you’ve gotten rid of the small stuff, take inventory again. When you declutter your living room, you want to tackle the items that are causing you stress.

Now stressers can come in all shapes and forms, so properly identifying them is key. When you are going through the process to declutter your living room, make sure that you look at everything objectively so you can get a clear picture of what actually is causing you stress.

Physical Media

When I was going through this process, I didn’t realize it at first, but one of my biggest stressers was the movie shelf. It was so full and so cluttered. And when I say shelf, I mean bookcase.

I love movies and I have a vast collection of them. But with the advent of streaming I can’t remember the last time I turned on our Blu-Ray player. I’m pretty sure it’s been at least 4 years. So I’m left with this massive bookcase full of DVDs that I don’t watch and that don’t look nice in the family room.

So, I boxed all of them up except for a select few and put them away in storage. I like to keep physical copies because I don’t trust digital services to not yank the titles away after I’ve paid for them as I’ve had that happen to me multiple times before, but that is a different topic.

But since most of what I had was widely available on one of my streaming platforms, there was no use in keeping a massive wall of movies. That alone cleared up a ton of stressers for me.

Then I looked at my cabinet of CDs and records. I don’t even own a CD Player or a record player, so why was I holding onto these? Away they all went! This was even more space decluttered!

Remember, when you declutter your living room, just because something has value doesn’t mean you have to keep it. Physical media does have value to a lot of people, but if you aren’t using it, there is no reason to keep it.

Declutter Your Living Room Furniture

Don’t be afraid to make bold moves! I made a bold move and I decided to get rid of furniture. I had furniture that had followed me around since college.

Some of it looked like it came out of the 70’s. It was bulky, it was ugly. And I hated it. I put it up for free online and within a couple of days it was gone!

You have no idea how freeing it was to not have that big ugly furniture in my living room. The living space is more open and less dark. And I have less to dust!

Now I recognize that not everyone is going to be able to part with furniture. It’s big, it can be expensive to get rid of, and maybe you actually like your furniture. But I put it in there because I want to prove a point.

Just because you’ve got something in your home, even if you spent a lot of money on it. Just because it’s been around a long time, that doesn’t mean you have to keep it. I know I sound like a broken record, but it’s true.

If it stresses you out, get rid of it. Who knows, maybe there is a better option. We realized we didn’t need an entertainment center. Our TV could be wall mounted, and thus out of reach of little fingers and most projectiles that might be thrown by said little fingers.

With the movie collection digitized I no longer needed a bookshelf to hold all of the movies, instead we just have a simple ladder shelf now that holds family photos and our AppleTV. The whole thing is so much less cluttered and takes a fraction of the time to clean.

Step 3: Tackle the Remainder

You’ve decluttered all of the easy things. You’ve moved things back to where they are supposed to go. You’ve taken care of items that directly stress you out.

Your room should be looking pretty good right now. But can you be doing more? Well that’s up to you. As I assessed my space, I realized there were still areas I could improve on.

Yes, I’d cleaned up the clutter but it was still kind of disorganized and that was leading to still causing some stress. So I decided to do a few more things to help reduce the cluttered look.

Declutter Your Living Room Electronics

First, I made the decision to get rid of the Blu-Ray player. It hadn’t been touched in years and we have a gaming system that will play them. It’s slightly less convenient but clearly the convenient option hadn’t made a difference so away it went! 

I also had a Fire Stick and a Wii. Neither of them had been touched in ages. I decided it was time for them to go. The Kinect attached to our X-Box hadn’t been used in ages. So it went away too. Remember, If you aren’t using your electronics, it’s OK to get rid of them.

A Little Organization Goes a Long Ways to Declutter Your Living Room

Now when we talk about decluttering, I usually separate out decluttering and organization. With that said, sometimes you’ve decluttered and it still looks bad.

When you declutter your living room, try to identify the focal point of the room and then make sure that area is free from clutter. For us, our focal point was the TV.

The cables coming out of the TV looked like spaghetti. Having a rats nest of cables coming out of your TV, especially when it is highly visible is not good for a decluttered look.

Cable ties are cheap. Or if you don’t want to spend money on those, twist ties from the various things you’ve purchased over the years always come in handy.

I know that even though I am pretty good about throwing twist ties away, we always seem to have at least a half dozen floating around the house at any given time. 

Once I was done, all of our cables were organized, wrapped, and grouped so that they looked uniform. Instead of a mess, I had a nicer looking single strand of cables coming out from the TV.

Pro Tip: Pre-Run your Cables for future devices!

Your future self will thank you for this. Inevitably things get swapped out or added. That new game system, maybe a receiver for your cable. When that happens, this means undoing all that work and running new cables.

I hate this. I know what ports the back of my TV has and what is supported on it. It’s 4 HDMI ports and 2 RCA ports. So I ran cables from all the ports from the back of the TV to the shelf where my electronics live.

Even though I don’t currently use all the ports, this has come in handy many times. The next time I added a device to my shelf, I just plugged it in and I was already setup with no need to mess with the cable organization.

It was also great when we dug out our old Nintendo 64, we just plugged it in temporarily and everything was all setup. Or when my cousin brought over her Nintendo Switch, we already had everything setup. It was just plug and play. All without ever having to touch my cable organization.

I also labeled them,so that I knew which HDMI port each one belonged to.  The label maker is my best friend. This will help you when you are selecting the device on your TV so you don’t have to scroll through the inputs to find the one you are looking for.

Finally since I still didn’t like the look of the cables, I took one of my bigger framed pictures and put it up on the shelf in front of the surge protector for the power. Now instead of looking at cables, I’m looking at a picture. All I see of the cables when I look over towards the TV is just a neatly wrapped bundle that goes from the TV behind a picture.

Declutter Your Living Room Pictures!

I rather dislike pictures on shelves. To me, it gives a cluttered look. They have their place and we absolutely have them in our house, but it’s not my preference. A big part of that is small kids.

When you declutter your living room, look at your wall space. I realized that we had a lot of wall space and with kids, things on tables and shelves were ripe opportunities for the kids to break them.

So, I moved a lot of pictures to the walls. The results were actually very nice. We used a non-uniform hanging method so that things didn’t have to be lined up with each other and we could add or remove pictures whenever we wanted.

This meant as the kids grow older we could add things without it looking lopsided or weird. This also meant that we had less physical clutter on the tables and shelves.

We also got rid of several of the pictures on the wall. There were things up that we didn’t really care about. Art that we’d gotten just to fill the space so the house didn’t look so bare. Just because you have pictures on the wall, doesn’t mean you have to keep them.

Books!

I don’t know who invented the idea of the ‘coffee table book’ but I hate it. It just looks like clutter. In fact, I hated the coffee table so it went away with other furniture I didn’t like.

Books can look nice in moderation. Too many and you get a cluttered mess. This can be an uphill battle with kids, so you may have to do several passes on the books to get rid of them all.

Most of the books we had got donated. Travel guides from places we had been to before a decade ago were outdated and if we ever did travel to those places again, we’d need updated information. So those went away. We kept the books the kids liked to read and then removed the rest. 

Do Another Pass to Declutter Your Living Room

Hopefully by this point you’ve gotten your living room into a decluttered state. If you’re still feeling overwhelmed by it, it means you are still above your clutter threshold and you need to look through it again and see what else you can declutter.

Keep in mind that if you don’t live alone, trying to keep below your clutter threshold can be a lot of work. My wife’s threshold is higher than mine so I see things that bother me and it won’t bother her at all. I also had to adjust my expectations when we had kids. Some battles just aren’t worth fighting.

Step 4: Maintenance

Now that you’ve gotten it decluttered it’s time to figure out how to maintain this newly decluttered space. It’s easier to maintain with less stuff. The way I do it is through schedules.

Every single night I go through and I pick up things and put them in their proper spot. If you’ve got kids that are old enough, you can try to make a game out of it and see how much you can get put away in 5 minutes. This helps with kids toys.

I do a quick pass every night just to make it so that this doesn’t become a huge time sink. Then at least once a week I vacuum and eliminate anything that doesn’t belong in the living room.

This ensures that my wife gets to look at the weekly ads so we know what we are going to meal prep for the next week but nothing stays for too long. 

Also, we invested in a robot vacuum for our downstairs. We found one at Walmart for $100 and it has been a game changer. Aside from the occasional annoyances of it getting lost or stuck in random places around the house, we can see a noticeable difference in the cleanliness of our living room.

It picks up a lot of dog hair and crumbs that the kids might have had on their clothes and we missed and it goes on a daily basis. I just incorporated emptying the bin from it into my nightly reset routine. It takes 10 seconds and has made my life so much easier.

I also try to wipe down surfaces in the living room at least once a week. This keeps the dust down. It is possible to have a clean and decluttered living room, it just takes a bit of work. However, once you’ve gotten it clean the work goes down to maintain it.

Free Yourself and Get rid of those empty boxes!

It’s time to get rid of those empty boxes!

Somehow we all have it. A little pile of boxes sitting somewhere in our house for our laptop, our phone, and various other electronics. I have a pile like this, my mom has a pile like this, why does this exist?

So let’s talk about this little pile of boxes. If you haven’t been told this already, let me tell you now.

Get Rid of Those Empty Boxes!

That’s right, you can get rid of those empty boxes! I’m specifically looking at your electronics boxes that seem to stick around forever. You don’t need them.

Nor do you need the box for your toaster oven, your coffee maker, or any of those million boxes from Amazon. You just don’t need them. Get rid of those empty boxes! Free yourself!

Get Rid of those empty boxes for your electronics!

For whatever reason, conventional wisdom for the last 15 years or so has been that you need to keep the boxes for your phone, your laptop, your tablet, and basically everything else because it helps with the resale value. Maybe 15 years ago that was true, but it doesn’t really hold true anymore.

Sure maybe you will find one or two people who are impressed that you still have the box for it but they aren’t going to pay more for a box that does nothing to improve the device you are selling. 

Now I’ll be the first to admit, I have one of these little piles myself. Well, had. In a fit of annoyance I filled up the recycle bin with all of the boxes for laptops, tablets, and various other things I’ve collected over the years.

I gained a huge chunk of space back in my closet from doing this. I also discovered in the process that I had 4 pairs of wired headphones, 3 charging bricks, 4 lightning cables, 2 lightning to 3.5 adapters, and an extender for the power cable on my laptop. So make sure you check those boxes before you chuck them! 

The 30 Day Limit

I do still have one of these piles of boxes for things, but it’s not like before. I subscribe to the 30 day limit. This means that I keep boxes for about 30 days. If for whatever reason I don’t like the item and still need to return it in the original packaging, I’ll know within 30 days.

After that, the boxes are gone. This is just a routine cleanup for me that I continually do whenever something new comes into the house, which thankfully isn’t that often anymore. 

No Really, Get Rid of those Empty Boxes for your MacBook!

Now I can hear someone in the back over there saying “But it’s for my MacBook! Someone will pay more for it because I’ve got the box!”

No. No they won’t. Your MacBook, IPhone, iPad, or whatever other device you are trying to sell is only worth what people are willing to buy it for and having the box won’t increase the value (especially if you’ve covered it in stickers, but that is a different topic).

I call these ones out specifically because this is a myth that tends to swirl around in the Apple user base far more than other brands. This is a voice of experience.

Even if people are willing to pay more for it, how much more do you think that is? Think of the space in your home as having a cost associated with it. Is the space that those boxes are taking up in your home worth the potential extra cost of storing them?

They have a mental cost because you know they are there causing clutter. They have a physical space cost. Especially laptops and tablets, those are decent size boxes.

What could you put in that space instead? Maybe nothing and you just have a more open home? Maybe freeing up that storage space allows you to put something you really want to see out in the open instead? 

So today, I hereby give you permission. Go recycle those boxes! Free up space in your home! Because at the end of the day, it’s just a pile of cardboard that is taking up space.

The Containers as Limits Method

The Containers as Limits Method of decluttering has been gaining traction in the last few years. Popularized by Dana K. White, the Container Method also known as the Containers as Limits Decluttering Method is one of my favorite methods for decluttering an area. It’s one I’ve been using since long before I’d ever heard of Dana K. White. In this post we are going to dig into this method and help you understand how it works.

What is the Containers as Limits Method?

The Containers as Limits Method of decluttering centers around the use of physical container to set boundaries within specific spaces or categories. In its simplest form, this method defines the limits of a designated area using containers, and once the container is full, it serves as a visual signal to stop accumulating more items in that space.

Now with the container as limits method, this doesn’t mean that you are necessarily putting things in a physical container, but I’ll get more into that later.  

The container method is made up of 5 core principles. Once you understand these, you can apply the container method to any aspect of your home. The five core principles of the container method are:

1. Setting Clear Boundaries

In essence, this is setting a boundary for your clutter within the containers themselves. As I mentioned earlier, a container doesn’t have to be a physical container like a storage tub, though there are a lot of instances where that might be the case. A container could be a shelf, or a drawer, or a section of a room. By setting clear boundaries, the container method states that once you have filled that container, you cannot put anything else in that space.

2. Assigning Containers to Categories

Each category or type of item should have its designated container. This could be a basket for accessories, a bin for toys, or a shelf for books. The idea is to have a specific place for every type of item, making it easier to maintain order and find things when you need them. Assigning containers to categories ensures that each item has its rightful place within the overall organization scheme.

3. Limiting the Space

The magic happens when you establish the size of the container. The container itself becomes a natural limit on the number of items you can keep within that space. If the container is full, it serves as a clear signal that it’s time to declutter or make decisions about what to keep and what to let go. This limitation encourages mindful choices and prevents unnecessary accumulation.

4. Prioritizing and Evaluating

The Containers as Limits method forces you to prioritize the items that truly matter to you. When faced with a limited space, you’re prompted to evaluate the significance and usefulness of each item. This process of prioritization is essential for cultivating a living environment that aligns with your values and brings you joy.

5. Avoiding Overflow

One of the key principles of this method is to resist the temptation to exceed the container’s capacity. Overflowing containers are visual cues that indicate a need to reassess and declutter. Instead of allowing clutter to build up over time, the Containers as Limits method encourages regular evaluation and maintenance.

Where Can I use the Containers as Limits method?

The great thing about this method is it can be used just about anywhere in your home. I’ve applied this in pretty much every room of my house. Let’s go over a few places that might be the most useful to you!

Kitchen Organization

The kitchen is one of those places that always seems to accumulate clutter. Whether it’s food, paper bags, mail, or kids toys. Everything always seems to land in the kitchen. The nice thing about the kitchen is it tends to have containers built into it in the form of drawers and cupboards.

Let’s take coffee cups for example. Everyone seems to love to give people coffee cups. If you’ve got a shelf in your cupboard and your coffee cups are stacked, you can use the container method to clear it out. Keep only the ones you like or need and then get rid of the rest.

That shelf is the limit of how many coffee cups you can actually keep. Let the size of the shelf be the container that limits your amount of coffee cups. Let the shelf be the enemy. If you have one that you like better than the rest but you don’t have a spot for it, choose which coffee mug you like the least and get rid of it. I’ve done this with glassware, plates, small appliances, food storage, even drawers of random utensils or knives. 

The Pantry

Apply the Containers as Limits method to your pantry by using containers for different food categories. Assign containers for grains, snacks, spices, and canned goods. When a container is full, it’s time to reassess your pantry items and make intentional choices about what to keep and what to use or donate.

Bedroom Closets

The Containers as Limits method works great for closets. I use this method to contain and sort through things like socks and t-shirts. This keeps the amount of each of these items down to a reasonable amount, it keeps things more organized, and makes it easier to see what you have. It also reduces the dreaded “I have nothing to wear” dilemma. 

Home Office and Paper Management

The Home Office is the perfect place to implement the Containers as Limits method. Paper clutter is a common challenge in many households. Using the Containers as Limits method, you can create a system for managing paperwork. Assign containers for bills, important documents, and miscellaneous papers. Personally I use a letter tray organizer with 5 slots.

When a container is full, it’s time to sift through the papers, discard what you no longer need, and organize the rest. This approach not only streamlines your home office but also ensures that important documents are easily accessible.

Children’s Toys and Play Areas

Nothings gets out of hand faster than children’s toys. For us, the children’s play room is a constant mess. The Containers as Limits method has helped a lot with wrangling that mess and reducing the clutter.

We have a bunch of containers to keep things separated out. Some examples of our containers are Stuffed Animals, Crafts, Trucks, and Blocks. We found that separating them out into containers has a few benefits. 

First, the kids know exactly what goes where so cleanup becomes easier. 

Second, there are less things overall to cleanup because the kids tend to not be dumping out all of the stuff as was the issue when everything was in one giant box. It’s so nice not having to pick up the jumbled mess of Potato Head parts, LEGO, Trucks, and blocks because they were all put together in one spot. 

Third, with the container as limits method, we can limit what the kids have access to and they can focus on certain toys rather than being overstimulated and having more toys than they could possibly play with during the day. This allows them to be more creative and imaginative.

Digital Clutter

While this is a bit more abstract to think about, you can absolutely use containers as limits to manage your digital clutter on your computer or smartphone. Create folders for different categories of files and set limits on the amount of data you store. When a digital container is nearing its limit, take the time to declutter and organize your digital files.

Benefits of the Containers as Limits Method

Now that we’ve explored the principles and practical applications of the Containers as Limits method, let’s discuss the benefits of incorporating this approach into your lifestyle. 

Visual Clarity

Visual Clarity is a huge benefit of the Containers as Limits method. As I mentioned earlier with the kids playroom, we used containers to separate various toys into their own spots. So LEGO had their own container, Mr. Potato Head had its own container, Play-Doh had its own container.

The result is that we can just look at the shelf and pull down the contained set of toys we are looking for. This also means when putting things away, the kids can easily identify what goes where.

This also works well for other things in the house. For clothing maybe you put all your socks in one container and plain colored t-shirts in another. In your cupboards you might organize things so all coffee mugs go on one shelf or all of your snacks go in a single container. In all cases, you can easily look and get visual clarity of where things should go.

Mindful Decision Making

Being more mindful about your decision making is a huge part of the Containers as Limits method. By limiting the available space for the various categories of things you own, you are forcing yourself to be more mindful. If you don’t have enough room in the container, you are forced to assess the value and importance of each item. 

For example, lets say you got a brand new coffee mug. As you are putting it in the cupboard, which is the container for it, you realize you don’t have room for it. Using the container method, you have to decide, what coffee mug do you get rid of?

This forces you to be mindful, perhaps this new mug that was just gifted to you isn’t something you want to keep after all and you get rid of it. Or perhaps you might want to get rid of that one mug that never seems to get clean or that you never use. With the containers as limits method, you only keep the stuff you want and never the stuff you don’t care about.

Prevention of Clutter

The Prevention of Clutter is perhaps the biggest reason why I embraced the Containers as Limits method. If everything is contained, it’s a lot harder to have clutter. It also means that instead of waiting and getting overwhelmed by the clutter, as you are adding things you are forced to make a decision about whether or not you want to keep items.

You can do things in the moment. The Containers as Limits method prompts you to consistently maintain and organize the space and helps maintain a more organized environment.

Efficient Use of Space

This is a big one for me, especially in the pantry and with kids toys. With limited space to put things away, trying to keep everything organized when it all comes in a wide manner of shapes and sizes leads to a disorganized mess. 

With the Containers as Limits method, you set the size and shape of the containers instead of the objects you are trying to contain setting the size and shape. I’ll take noodles for example. We all know noodles come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes.

Because we cook from a variety of different cultures, we end up with noodles in boxes, noodles in flimsy bags, noodles in jars, individually packaged noodles. It can be a mess. So, we put each of the noodle types in a new container. A container that fits neatly and efficiently into our pantry. 

This means we always know how much of each type of noodle we have because we can easily look at it, the noodles aren’t strewn throughout the pantry in various spots that ‘Just fit’, and everything is efficiently organized in a way that uses less space.

Keep in mind, you can do this with just about anything, I do this to more efficiently organize things like Play-doh and LEGO or even socks!

Empowerment and Control

Decluttering can be a daunting task, but the Containers as Limits method empowers you to take control of your living spaces. The clear boundaries and visual cues provide a sense of control over your belongings, contributing to a more positive and empowered mindset.

Adaptability to Different Spaces

One of the strengths of this method is its adaptability to various spaces and categories. Whether you’re tackling a small drawer or an entire room, the Containers as Limits approach can be customized to suit your specific decluttering goals.

Overcoming Potential Challenges

I’d be lying if I said there aren’t potential challenges that come with this system. Being aware of them allows you to address them head-on.

Sentimental Items

Sentimental items can be especially hard to let go off. I know because I’ve got stuff I’ve held onto for years for sentimental reasons. Keep in mind, it is perfectly fine to keep sentimental items, but the key is to focus on the joy and purpose that the items bring into your life. If an item no longer serves any purpose in your life or doesn’t bring any joy to your life, consider letting it go. 

Consistent Maintenance

Like all systems, maintaining it takes effort. The Containers as Limits method is no different. You should set aside time to regularly evaluate and declutter the designated containers to ensure that it doesn’t get overwhelming. If you are allowing the method to work as intended though and maintaining as you are hitting the limits of your containers, maintenance should be an easy task.

Initial Time Investment

This is the biggest hurdle most people have to overcome with the Containers as Limits method. Getting started on this method takes time. You have to go through and declutter items and choose what to keep and what to get rid of. This is generally not quick to do. Set aside time to do this. Even if it’s just 15 minutes per day to tackle a section. This will add up quickly and you will make progress. Every little bit of progress helps. The long term benefits will make this time investment worthwhile.

Final Thoughts

I’ve been using this method for years and it changed the way I organize and maintain my home. I don’t have it implemented everywhere, but where I do there is a huge difference in the ease or organization and a reduction of clutter in those areas. 

As long as you are willing to put in the effort to start using this method and get over the initial hurdles of time and decluttering, the long term benefits of this will pay off and your home will be more simplified while still maintaining the feel of a home. This will help reduce time spent on cleaning and reduce your stress and anxiety, giving you time to focus on the more important things in your life.

Embrace the Daily 15 Minute Clean!

Did you know that 15 minutes every day can change your life? It’s true, and in this article I’m going to tell you how! OK, enough of the clickbait introductions, I always hated those and I feel like the article is always a letdown. So let’s just cut to the chase and let’s talk about the Daily 15 Minute Clean.

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Quickly Decluttering Your Home Office

If you’re lucky enough to have a home office (or cursed depending on your perspective) then you probably know all too well the pains of when it gets disorganized. The Home Office tends to be a purgatory of bills, schoolwork, random documents, random technology, and a whole myriad of other things that seem to fit into that ‘Home Office’ category. Today we are going to go over the process of decluttering your home office and how to get it organized.

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