Category: Cleaning

Overcoming Declutter Paralysis in 3 Easy Steps!

You look at a space and can’t even bring yourself to start decluttering it. Declutter Paralysis has kicked in and you don’t know what to do.

You know you need to declutter this space. It’s stressing you out. But you just can’t. You don’t know where or even how to start. Even if you did know, it’s just so overwhelming that you can’t bring yourself to start on it.

I’ve been there before. It’s tough to bring yourself to get past decluttering paralysis, but once you do, things start to get easier. But first you’ve got to get over that hurdle and that’s where I come in.

What is Declutter Paralysis?

Before we get started in trying to overcome Declutter Paralysis, we have to understand what it is. Declutter Paralysis is when you get so overwhelmed by decluttering that you can’t bring yourself to start decluttering.

This can often happen if you’re already stressed out and you’ve got a space that is very cluttered and disorganized. It can also happen if the space is very large or the task is monumental.

My goal is to provide you some easy steps to overcoming declutter paralysis and help you achieve your goals of a decluttered space.

Step 1: Redefine Your Decluttered Vision

Declutter Paralysis is largely a mental state. Half of getting past declutter paralysis is removing that mental block that is preventing you from starting.

I’ve had to clean up some gnarly spaces. The mental thought going through my head that was a little voice saying “I don’t want to do this. I know I have to do this, but this is going to suck. So nope, I’m not going to do this.” This can be an extremely difficult voice to ignore.

One thing I chose to do is redefine what my vision of the decluttered space looked like. So many people get caught on “picture perfection”. Don’t guilt yourself into thinking that you have to have this picture perfect home.

Houses are to be lived in and you are just setting yourself up for failure to try and make it picture perfect all the time. So eliminate that thought right away. You can make it better, but striving for perfect will just set you back where you started.

Step 2: Make it More Manageable

I hear you groaning right now. “Yeah, if it was more manageable, I’d do it already.” Part of declutter paralysis is that most people don’t know how to make the task more manageable. It’s more difficult than it sounds.

Take a look at the space that needs to be decluttered. Start by remembering, you don’t have to do this all at once. Even if you’ve only got a weekend or a day to do it, you don’t have to do it all at once.

Break it Down into Sections

If it’s a big area you are trying to declutter, like an entire room, break it down into sections. It doesn’t matter how many sections you break it down into, just break it down into something that is manageable to you. 

I remember decluttering what is now the kid’s playroom. I needed to have it decluttered and organized by the end of the day because we had guests coming over that night and I’d been working a lot. I’d taken the day off to declutter it.

Declutter paralysis had set in hard. I did not want to tackle that room and it had just gotten worse month after month.

It was a mess. Boxes everywhere from moving. It was the catch-all storage area for everything for years. I ended up breaking it down into 12 different areas to make it more manageable because it was so overwhelming.

Those areas ranged from a single shelf on the book case which was just loaded with stuff to a 10 square foot corner piled high with boxes.

By breaking it down it changed the mindset from “I have to do all this work! It’s never going to get done, I don’t even want to start.” To “I can get this shelf done in the next 30 minutes, it’s small and manageable.” or “I can get this box done in the next 15 minutes and then take a 5-10 minute break.” Once you’ve gotten into this new mindset, you’ve made huge progress in overcoming your declutter paralysis.

When I was decluttering my old home, There were seriously days when all I could bring myself to accomplish was one 2 foot long shelf on a bookcase.

But if that was all I could bring myself to accomplish that day without getting overwhelmed, so be it. I made progress!  As a bonus, once it was decluttered, it remained decluttered. 

Step 3: The Multi-Pass Method

Once it’s broken down into sections, I go through each section on different passes. These different passes are just different levels of effort required to declutter.

First Pass: Low Effort

The first pass is doing the lowest effort work first. The things you don’t have to think about. Start by just eliminating anything that is just garbage. Garbage has no use, no sentimental value, it’s easy to get rid of.

So just bring your trash and recycle bin over and anything that fits into that category, just eliminate right off the top. There! It’s gone! You’ve already made progress! It always amazes me how many items when I am decluttering are just garbage. You may not initially think there is any garbage in the spot you are decluttering, but there probably is.

Second Pass: Items that Make you Feel Bad

For the second pass, I get rid of anything that makes me feel bad or upset. If this reminds you of the KonMari method where she asks ‘Does this Spark Joy?’ It’s because it’s a similar concept.

These items I might get rid of are dead plants because I have zero ability to keep plants alive as I always forget to water them, unfinished projects that you are realistically never going to finish, clothes that you dislike, or even expensive items that make you feel guilty for never using them. 

Third Pass: Items You Don’t Care About

On the third pass, these are things that you don’t really care about. They may still be useful, but you really don’t need them anymore. For example, this might be books and movies that you are never going to read or watch again, items that you’ve replaced with something nicer like old phones, worn out food storage containers, or small appliances. All of these are prime candidates for disposal.

Fourth Pass: Send Things Home

On the fourth pass, I start placing things in their proper home. For example, I decluttered a window sill the other day and I realized I had a tape measure there that hadn’t gotten back into its home after I hung up a coat rack because kids cause chaos and I forgot I had left it there.

This was clearly something that I needed and used, but it was causing clutter by not going to its proper place. Just putting things in their proper home can generally clean up a lot of space.

By the time you’ve gone through all four passes, you should have decluttered the whole space. If you are still cluttered in that space, then go through it again.

Tip and Tricks to Deal with Declutter Paralysis

If you’re still dealing with declutter paralysis, there are lots of ways to deal with it. Here are a few of my go-to tricks that help me get through the process easier:

The Container as Limits Method

One of the big mental blocks I dealt with that caused declutter paralysis was that I have a lot more of something than I actually need but the items are still useful. In this case, it’s helpful to use the container method. Make the container the enemy and not your mind.

A quick example is pens. I have a lot of pens. Do I need 100 pens? Probably not. So I put them in a pen holder and it only held 30 pens. So I took out the 70 pens I didn’t like, that never wrote correctly, were out of ink, etc and left only the 30 I liked.

It was still a lot of pens but I didn’t feel bad about getting rid of those 70 pens anymore because the space only allows for 30.

Take Pictures

If you are still having problems overcoming declutter paralysis, take a picture of the space. Then take 5 minutes and declutter whatever you can in that time. Once the 5 minutes is up, leave the space for the day. Clear it from your mind. Then go back to it the next day and declutter for another 5 minutes. Repeat this until your space is decluttered.

There might be days you only declutter 1-2 items, but at the end you will have a decluttered space. If you are feeling overwhelmed on any day, go back and look at that before photo. Compare it to the progress you’ve made. 

Choose Visible Spots to Declutter

If your whole house is cluttered, then choose the spot that is most visible to you. Sure, your closet in the hall might be a mess, but if you spend 4 hours cleaning it out and then you never look at it, you aren’t ever going to feel like you’ve accomplished anything.

But if you declutter that space that you see every day as you walk in the door, you’ll see your accomplishments and this will help to overcome the declutter paralysis. 

Items You Feel Guilty Getting Rid Of

Are you feeling guilty about potentially getting rid of stuff that was gifted to you? Maybe an item was somewhat valuable or it has sentimental value to someone who gave it to you. So you feel bad getting rid of it.

This is your permission to get rid of it. Acknowledge the guilt associated with getting rid of items and understand that you have the right to let go of things that no longer serve you, even if they were gifted or have sentimental value.

Give yourself permission to release the burden of these items. Remember, once they are in your possession, you have the power to decide what stays and what goes. Embrace the freedom that comes with decluttering.

In conclusion, overcoming declutter paralysis is not only achievable but also empowering. By simply taking the first step, whether it’s tackling one small area or setting a timer for just a few minutes, you can break the cycle of feeling overwhelmed. This initial action serves as a catalyst for further progress, helping you regain control over your environment. Remember, the journey to a more organized and peaceful space begins with that first decisive move. Embrace the process, and you will find that clarity and calm are within your reach.

How to Declutter Your Home Part 2

In part of our series on how to declutter, I want to discuss steps 5-8. I touched on them in the the Article How to Declutter Your Home Part 1, but now I want to go more in depth.

As a quick recap of of the first for steps in process of learning how to declutter, you did the following:

  1. You identified where you want to start.
  2. You broke your area down into manageable tasks.
  3. You started decluttering.
  4. You made a list of projects that came from your decluttering.

If you haven’t done those steps yet, go back and read How to Declutter Your Home Part 1. Then go through that process. Once you’ve done that, come back and let’s start on the next steps.

How to Declutter Your Home Steps 5-8

The next 4 steps in decluttering your home are as follows:

  1. Organize.  
  2. Execute your projects you identified.
  3. Reorganize based on the completion of projects
  4. Declutter as maintenance.

Now that we know all the steps, it’s time to work through each one so you can have a truly decluttered home.

Step 5: Organize

The 5th step in the process of learning how to declutter your home is to organize your space. Depending on the size of the area and how much you have leftover after decluttering, this can either be a very quick process or a very long process.

Organization is broken down into a few basic steps:

  1. Sort and categorize your items that you are organizing. While you were decluttering, you probably already started this process. This means that if you’ve got pens, they all go together. If you have cleaning products, those all go together too. Categorize in a way that makes sense.
  2. Identify storage solutions for your space if needed. For example, organizing my bookshelf I didn’t need storage solutions, I just needed to put my books in place in a manner that made sense. For the top shelf of my desk, I just needed to ungroup things so they looked nice. When it came to organizing my closet, I needed storage solutions for the various seasonal decorations, air mattresses, and other things stored there.
  3. Label as needed. Labels are extremely important in organization. Especially if you have storage solutions. These ensure that you always know what is in any given storage container and only the items that belong there, end up in that container.

It’s extremely important when you are learning how to declutter that you figure out an organizational system that works for you. You will want to ensure it is well thought out. Otherwise you will end up with a cluttered mess again.

Step 6: Execute the Projects You Identified

So you identified some more projects to take care of. Now that you’ve decluttered that space you were working on, it’s time to start executing the other projects you wrote down to take care of.

During this phase, you are going to start back at step 3, the decluttering phase. For each of the projects that you identified during your previous decluttering steps, you are going to prioritize and execute them in whichever order makes the most sense.

For example, let’s say when I decluttered my desk, I still had that jar of pens that I needed to go through, a now neatly decluttered stack of papers, and a disorganized storage tub that has a bunch of old computer parts in it.

I would then prioritize each of these items in a way that made the most sense for me. The paper was going to be the most time consuming and least visually impactful. The pens wouldn’t be visually impactful and it would be quick. The storage container was going to be the most visually impactful, but emotionally consuming.

In the end, I chose the storage tub of computer parts and started going through that process to start on. This goes back to my previous statement, when you are trying to figure out how to declutter, there is no right or wrong way.

While I opted for the most visually impactful, you might choose the path of the most time consuming just to get it out of the way. Both are perfectly fine.

Step 7: Reorganize Based on Project Completion

Now that you’ve executed your other projects, you will need to reorganize. This is important because a lot of times when you organize other things, you may find that areas you already decluttered either now look more cluttered because you found things that actually belong there. Or maybe you got rid of things and now it doesn’t look as organized anymore.

In this step of the how to declutter process, you will make sure that you aren’t taking step backwards. By reorganizing, you are ensuring that things stay neat and orderly.

In the process of learning how to declutter, this step tends to be more aesthetic but still important. What good is a decluttered home if it still looks bad?

For example, I decluttered one of my counters and I had project that came out of it to go through a bunch of bottles for when I home brew. At the end of sorting through all of them, all of which did belong on that counter I ended up with everything shoved in a corner. A significantly smaller amount of bottles, but they were still shoved in a corner. So during this reorganization step I made it look nice and fit in with the rest of the aesthetic of the counter.

Step 8: Declutter as Maintenance

Step 8 in the process of learning how to declutter is to declutter as maintenance. Decluttering as maintenance means that you are consistently going back to a space that you decluttered to ensure that it remains decluttered.

Depending on the location, you may want to go back to it monthly, weekly, or even daily to ensure that it remains decluttered.

For example, our kitchen counter where mail from the day frequently lands, I will clean off and declutter daily. We have a table that always seems to collect kids stuff throughout the week. I tend to declutter that weekly. Other places like my closet I declutter every 6 months or so depending on what fits and what is worn out.

As you complete these 4 steps, you will start seeing a change in how cluttered your house is. Keeping your house clutter free will result in less stress and anxiety and ultimately it will help improve your life.

5 Tips to Declutter A Garage

“Go clean up the garage.” Those are five very dreadful words. Everyone hates trying to declutter a garage. For whatever reason, the garage always seems to become a mess.

It becomes a catch-all for everything from random seasonal stuff to unfinished projects to cardboard boxes. Oh so many cardboard boxes. I just look around my neighborhood and see all the cars that are in people’s driveways because they won’t fit in the garage. 

If you are reading this, it’s likely because you are trying to figure out how to declutter a garage. Trying to declutter a garage is unique challenge though because it tends to be an area where the solution tends to be less about decluttering and more about utilizing your space in a better manner.

This is because unlike other rooms in the house, the garage doesn’t tend to have furniture. It’s generally a large empty room that you put cars in. 

As I looked at our garage, I realized almost everything in there belonged in the garage. I’m not going to store power tools in the living room where I’ve got shelves!

The bikes took up a lot of room too. Most everything actually belonged in the garage but it just looked horrible! Now our garage is neat (most of the time) and we can always park our cars in there. So how did I do it?

Steps to Declutter A Garage

Step 1: Take Inventory and do a Primary Purge

The first step to declutter a garage is to take inventory of what you have. Now I don’t mean create a exhaustive physical list, but at least get a good idea of what you have. Power tools, lawn maintenance equipment, car maintenance tools, bikes, outdoor kids toys, the whole 9 yards.

When you are taking inventory, this is a great time to do what I call ‘The Primary Purge’. This means that as I am doing an initial look over of what I’ve got in the garage, if I see broken or useless items or things I never use, I just get rid of them on the spot.

In some cases this means putting things in the garbage, in other cases it meant putting things in a donation bin. You can’t declutter a garage unless you know what you are working with. It’s also a whole lot easier to organize a garage if you have less stuff to work with..

As I was taking inventory and getting rid of things, I realized that largely everything out there belonged out there, but without any proper storage solutions it was a giant mess.

Step 2: Identify Usable Space

The next thing to do when you declutter a garage is to identify how much usable space you have. Usable space was whatever space you have leftover after the garage is utilized for what you want it for.

In my case that was to park my cars, but maybe that is your workout equipment or even a workbench that you use for your hobbies. This is especially important when you’ve got large items that need to go in your garage, as you may need to work around them.

Once I figured out what kind of useable space I had, I went on to the next step.

3: Visualize Your Space

When you declutter a garage, you really need to visualize the space. I put this step in here because it really helped me figure out a plan for how I wanted to utilize my space.

For example, I realized that the way I was using my space was very poor. If I parked the car in closer to the garage door I’d free up a ton of space. From there I started visualizing the various things I had and how I’d want to store them using the space I had. Which lead me to an important thing I wasn’t thinking of previously:

Step 4: Figure Out How to Utilize Space Vertically and Above

The garage represents a unique space where it’s not necessarily an issue to add in shelving that is hanging from the ceiling. When you declutter a garage, often times the issue is less about having too much stuff and more about not having a good organizational system.

Unlike other places, the garage is not as likely to be a space where you are trying for aesthetics. So this is the perfect place to put hanging storage.

Depending on the height of your garage, you can use this to gain back space that would be otherwise wasted. For example, we keep a chest freezer and a refrigerator in our garage for long term food storage. Due to their size and shape, we could put wall shelving above them.

Enter the ceiling shelves. With those, we were then able to utilize all of that space for storage. It made an ideal spot for all of our holiday decorations and things we really only needed to access once or twice a year.

One thing I will note is don’t put this type of storage above your vehicles. You don’t want to risk anything falling on your vehicles, especially if you don’t properly install them.

For vertical shelving, look at things like pegboards and shelves you can hang on the wall. For example, we found a tire rack that hangs about 8 feet off the ground for our winter snow tires. This works great because it freed up all the space on the ground while looking nice and giving us way more room.

On this same train of thought, we realized we could save room by hanging our bikes on the wall and installing hooks for things like brooms, shovels, rakes, and even our folding chairs.

While it might not be super aesthetically pleasing, we wasted very little space on our walls to ensure that we had maximized our space so that as new and often times temporary items came into the garage we didn’t have to rearrange everything to accommodate.

So for example, right now our kids have PoweWheel trucks. With our upgraded storage we had room for them so we didn’t have to rearrange the garage.

As you are implementing storage onto your walls and ceiling, take a moment and ask yourself if the items you are going to be putting up there are worth the time and effort. Use this as an opportunity to get rid of things that you just don’t want to store.

Step 5: Utilize Standardized Storage Containers

Mismatched storage containers are the bane of my existence and not because they don’t match. When I organized my garage, I picked up a ton of those Black and Yellow Costco Storage tubs. Why?

Because when you have mismatched storage containers, you end up wasting a lot of space. The pile of clear plastic containers that had various tools or Christmas items in them took up far more room than a single Costco Storage tub and held significantly less items. Also when you have to remove them from the shelves, these all stack nicely. 

Even when taking stuff off of shelves it is far more efficient to use standardized containers. The amount of times that I had to dig through a stack of boxes to get to what I was after because it was on the bottom was absurd.

Then the boxes ended up either in a very wobbly stack on the garage floor or spread out across the garage floor to avoid them falling. Then you have to put all of them back! It takes forever!

So, I organized things into the appropriate tubs, labeled them, and then put them all up on the shelves nicely. The result was very little wasted space and a neat and clean looking garage area. 

While you are doing this, this is an ideal time to do a final purge of items. When you declutter a garage, you want to make sure you aren’t putting things back into storage that you don’t want or need.

Key Takeaways to Declutter a Garage

Overall it’s pretty simple to declutter a garage to get it clean and organized. The key items to remember are as follows:

  • Inventory and remove items that don’t belong. 
  • Identify space that could be better utilized and visualize how you want to use it.
  • Install storage on the walls and above or even additional floor shelving if you have room
  • Standardize your storage containers.

Once you’ve gone through this process, your garage should be a neat and orderly place!

6 Expert Tips for Organizing Your Closet

Organizing your closet can be a game changer in your day to day life. It can streamline your daily routine and reduce stress. However, actually organizing your closet is often easier said than done. 

Most people think they have an organized closet but then when they actually go to find things, they realize that lots of items are stuffed haphazardly into shelves and drawers and they can’t actually find anything. This isn’t helpful to your daily routine at all!

I’m going to help you transform your closet with 6 expert tips. These will help you with organizing your closet and transforming it from a mess to a functional and aesthetically pleasing space!

The 6 Steps for Organizing Your Closet

Step 1. Declutter!

Before you start your dive into organizing your closet, it’s absolutely crucial that you declutter your closet first! Otherwise you are just trying to organize clutter and you won’t get anywhere. I go more in depth on decluttering your closet in my other articles, but here are the basics.

You’re going to want to sort your items into 3 categories. Keep, Donate/Sell, and Trash. Everything will go into one of these 3 categories.

When you are doing your sorting, you should be ruthless in your decision making process. You should only keep the items that you love, that you wear frequently, or serve a practical purpose. 

Anything that no longer fits, is damaged beyond repair, or hasn’t been worn in over a year you should discard in either the donation or the trash.

By decluttering your closet, you are clearing up valuable space and also laying a foundation for organizing your closet in an effective manner.

Step 2. Utilize Vertical Space

If you aren’t utilizing your space effectively, then you will struggle to organize your closet effectively. I’ve had walk-in closets and I’ve had tiny closets that quite frankly I don’t know how I managed to put anything in there. 

When it comes to organizing your closet, you need to maximize the space you have effectively. That means using that vertical space. Don’t be afraid to install shelves or cubbies above your hanging rods to store folded items like sweaters, jeans, handbags, or even hats.

You can also consider adding hooks or pegs to the walls or the back of your closet door to hang scarves, belts, shoes, or other accessories. 

By making use of that vertical space, you can create additional storage space to organize your closet without overcrowding the rest of your closet space and making it look messy.

Step 3. Invest in Quality Hangers

OK, this one sounds silly, but this makes a huge difference. I always thought a hanger is a hanger right? So I just reused the ones I got from various shirts I bought over the years. You know, the cheap plastic ones that come with shirts you buy at Walmart.

Then my wife handed me some high quality hangers and oh man, it made a huge difference in maintaining the closet.

Slim, non-slip hangers help to maximize the hanging space in your closet. It also prevents your clothing from slipping off the hanger while ensuring that it hangs correctly rather than looking misshapen. 

Additionally, having the same type of hangers helps keep a cohesive look in your closet, making it look visually more appealing while making it easier to organize clothing by type or color. 

If you really want to get fancy, you can even invest in different colors of hangers for different seasons or different types of clothing.

One important thing to do is invest in specialty hangers for items like pants, skirts, or other delicate garments. This will help them maintain their shape and appearance.

Step 4. Organize by Category

When you organizing your closet, make sure you organize by category. You’d be amazed at how many people don’t do this. When you organize your closet by category, you make it easier to locate items and plan outfits.

You should organize your clothing into categories such as tops, bottoms, dresses, outerwear, and special occasion attire. Within each category, further organize your your items by color or season to create a visually appealing display.

Make use of labeled bins or baskets for corralling smaller items like socks, underwear, or accessories. 

By adopting a systematic approach to organizing your closet, you and simplify the process and help maintain order over time. 

I know it sounds like a lot of work to do, but it isn’t. When I fold my laundry, I just sort it on the spot and then put it away in its proper home. While it seems daunting, in practice it really takes no time at all.

Step 5. Implement Storage Solutions

Storage solutions can make a huge difference when organizing your closet. In many cases, a one size fits all solution does not work. By implementing specific storage solutions to fit your individual needs, you can improve the aesthetics and efficiency of your closet space.

Utilize drawer dividers or organizers to separate and contain smaller items like socks, underwear, or jewelry. Shoe racks or shelving units can be used to keep shoes neatly organized and accessible. Garment bags can be utilized to keep whole outfits together.

Also, keep in mind that you don’t always have to store everything in your closet. Under the bed storage containers can be great for off-season or rarely worn items and can free up valuable closet space.

You can also implement custom storage solutions that can be tailored to fit your space. By customizing the solutions to fit your closets dimensions and layout, you can ensure that your space is utilized effectively. 

Step 6. Maintain Regular Maintenance

Maintaining closet organization requires and ongoing effort and commitment. Set aside time on a regular basis to assess your closet’s contents, purge items as needed, and reorganize as your wardrobe evolves. 

Adopt a “one in, one out” policy for new clothing purchases to prevent clutter from accumulating over time. 

Remember, when organizing your closet, just because you start with an organizational system you don’t have to keep it. Make adjustments to your organization system as necessary to accommodate changes in your lifestyle or seasonal wardrobe rotation.

By incorporating regular maintenance into your routine, you can ensure that your closet remains organized and functional for the long term.

Final Thoughts 

Transforming your closet from a chaotic space to an organized oasis is within reach with these expert tips. By decluttering, maximizing vertical space, investing in quality hangers, organizing by category, implementing storage solutions, and maintaining regular maintenance, you can create a closet that not only looks great but also makes getting dressed a breeze. Take the first step towards closet organization today and reap the benefits of a well-organized wardrobe for years to come.

How to Declutter Your Kitchen right now

Trying to declutter your kitchen can be a massive undertaking. Depending on the size of your kitchen and what kind of things you have in your kitchen, trying to keep everything in a clean and organized state can seem like an exercise in futility. 

I’ve lived in places with tiny kitchens and large kitchens. They each present their own unique challenges. Fortunately, there are ways to declutter your kitchen and maintain it, even when everything seems hopeless.

Declutter Your Kitchen Counters

This is the thing you are going to see the most when you look at your kitchen. If your countertops are a cluttered mess, this is going to set the tone for the whole kitchen. So when you declutter your kitchen, start with the counters. This is also where you are likely to be preparing food, so maximizing the space and cleanliness here is an absolute necessity.

Dishes

Start simple. Do you have dirty dishes out on the countertop? Put them in the dishwasher or wash them and put them away. If you’ve got clean dishes out on the counter, put them away. Just that little bit of maintenance can make a big dent in your quest to declutter your kitchen. 

Garbage/Trash

Next it’s time to deal with garbage and trash. Perhaps you are lucky and don’t have actual garbage on the counter. However, if your house is like our house, decluttering your kitchen meant getting rid of garbage.

I know it’s not uncommon for us to have trash on the counter. We have young kids and our trash cans are locked behind child-safe locks on cabinets. So when you’ve got kids screaming and you don’t have time, suddenly the garbage ends up on the counter. Do a cursory clean of all those items and throw them away.

Paperwork

For whatever reason people love to keep paperwork in the kitchen. It’s a huge pet peeve of mine. Generally I think it’s because the kitchen tends to be a spot where people land after they get the mail. When you declutter your kitchen, get all the paperwork out of there. It doesn’t belong in the kitchen.

Take a look at the paperwork in your kitchen, if it’s a bill or an actionable item then put it in a spot where you can take action on it outside of the kitchen. If you’ve already got an organizational system in place for paperwork, then use that system for this paperwork.

If not, then take a look at my system for organizing paperwork. For anything that is junk, put it directly in the recycle bin. Get it cleared off the counter. For the purposes of cleaning up paperwork to declutter your kitchen it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Don’t get hung up on setting up an organizational system elsewhere in the house for your paperwork. One job at a time. Just get it out of the kitchen to a spot that is closer to where it belongs.

Small Appliances

Now you’ve gotten the basic maintenance items out of the way. If your kitchen is still cluttered, you may have to look at additional solutions.  It can be helpful to declutter your kitchen appliances.

Look at the appliances on your countertop. Most people have several ranging from microwaves to coffee makers. Are there any appliances up there that you absolutely never use? If so, consider finding new spots for them or getting rid of them.

I know in my old apartment I used the toaster approximately twice over the course of 3 years, but it was occupying precious counter space in my tiny kitchen. So I opted to get rid of it and free up that space.

You may also want to declutter your kitchen appliances that only serve a single purpose. For example, our rice cooker would live on our countertop. So would our InstantPot. Since the InstantPot doubles as a rice cooker, we got rid of the rice cooker and just kept the InstantPot, thus freeing up valuable counter space.

Expensive Items

Now you might be asking, what if an item cost a lot? When you declutter your kitchen, don’t get caught up in the cost of items. If you aren’t using them, then you aren’t getting any value out of them.

Space on your countertop has value and you need to decide if the value of losing the counter space is worth more than the value of the item. Maybe things like a KitchenAid Mixer are worth it, but that toaster isn’t.

At the end of the day, it’s up to you to decide the value of that item in reference to the space it takes up. Remember, you don’t necessarily have to completely get rid of the items off your countertop.

Going back to the KitchenAid Mixer, we don’t use it that often, but it does get used every other month or so. We realized that didn’t warrant the amount of space it took up on our counter. So we found a spot in the cupboard to store it when it wasn’t in use.

Misc Items

If you’re like me, we still had a variety of other items on the countertop that were taking up space. For example, we had coffee pods, chopsticks, fruits, and bread. When you declutter your kitchen and see these things you might think “Wait, these things all belong here!” However, it looked messy and cluttered. So, we introduced the container as limits system.

If you’ve read any of my other articles, you’ll know I’m a big fan of the container as limits system. Which is to say, that you put things in a contained spot and if they don’t fit then you get rid of things until they do. In this way, you are letting the container be the enemy.

For example, we put all of the chopsticks in a coffee cup. After all was said and done, we still had 6 pairs of chopsticks. Because we didn’t have room for those last 6 pairs of chopsticks, we got rid of them. They didn’t fit in the container allotted for them, which meant we had more than we needed.

For the coffee pods we got a little jar that was perfect for holding a box of coffee pods that we got from the store. The pods always end up in that jar as soon as we open the box and they are never spreading across the countertop anymore.

For the fruit and veggies and bread, we put a box on the counter that contains them all. We never buy more than will fit in the box and it keeps them contained and from creeping across the counter.

Keep looking around your counters as you declutter your kitchen. Ask yourself, what else is taking up space and cluttering your counters and what can be contained or gotten rid of?

With young kids, their items take up a lot of room. Especially when they were in the bottle phase. We ended up getting a small set of plastic drawers that fit on the counter easily for all of their bottle items.

With that we were able to contain the mess of all the bottle items that were constantly all over the counter and get them in an organized. When we realized we had too many of something, we got rid off it. 

Once you have containerized and prioritized the items on your countertop, you should have a pretty decluttered and hopefully decently organized countertop. Now it’s time to tackle the cupboards. 

Declutter Your Kitchen Cupboards 

Cupboards are a beast of their own. So often we have items in there that we rarely use but still hold onto for various reasons. Again, let the cupboards be containers and act as the limiter to how much space things can take up.

It makes the cupboards the enemy and not your emotions about whether or not you should keep things. For us the big things that seem to always multiple like rabbits are coffee cups, pint glasses, and storage containers.

Glassware

The way I approached this was to think about how many of each of the coffee cups and pint glasses that was the maximum we’d ever really need.

Figuring in that we are a family of 4 and we’d frequently have 2 guests over, we figured that 6 of each was a good amount. Then we saved our favorite 6 of each one and got rid of the rest. This worked out well because this was approximately how much space we had on the shelf for the glassware. 

Storage Containers

For the storage containers, these I went through and checked to find out which ones didn’t have lids, which ones were cracked, which ones were oddly shaped and never got used, and which ones I knew I hated because they leaked. Anything that met that criteria, I got rid of.

Then I changed my storage method. My goal was no longer to store the maximum amount of things in there, but to store only useful items in there. So rather than stacking them together, I put lids on each container and then stacked them with the lids on.

This also mitigates the unfortunate side effect of if there is just a little bit of moisture anywhere on the glass containers, they will stick together like concrete. 

While this method ultimately took up more room in my cupboard, it’s important to remember that the idea isn’t to fit as many things into the cupboard as possible.

The idea is to declutter it and remove anything that isn’t useful. So by doing this, I forced myself to remove any of the items without lids, the ones I never used, the ones that were chipped, the ones that weren’t microwave safe, etc. 

Pots and Pans

When it came to the other cupboards like pots and pans, I did the same thing. I made sure sets were together, then I stacked them so that I had to analyze whether or not I actually wanted them.

That Wok with the broken handle. Gone! Why do I have these glass pots? I never use them and they are ugly. Gone! I kept using the space of the cupboard as my enemy that decided what stays and what goes and I repeated this through every single cupboard until I had much much less stuff.

Declutter Your Kitchen Drawers

Now in the drawers, I had a lot of single purpose items. Some of them were useful (Like the lemon squeezer) other items like the banana slicer I scratched my head and wondered why we even had that.

For anything that we never used that was a single purpose type of item, I got rid of it to free space for other things. Now one thing to remember, when I say single purpose, I am talking about things that have a purpose that could easily be accomplished by other tools in the kitchen.

Going back to the banana slicer, I could easily accomplish the same task with a butter knife, but a set of measuring spoons is also single purpose but it would be difficult and annoying to use other tools in the kitchen to accomplish what those do. So I kept them.

Final Thoughts

Once you’ve gone through all of this, your kitchen should be a lot less cluttered. You will still need to perform regular maintenance on your kitchen to ensure it doesn’t get cluttered again, but now that you’ve gotten rid of all the extraneous items, you shouldn’t need to declutter your kitchen again.

If you struggle to keep your kitchen clean still, I have some handy steps on how to maintain your kitchen. Remember, it’s always easier to keep your kitchen clean if it contains less clutter.

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. 

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.

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.

Continue reading “Embrace the Daily 15 Minute Clean!”

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