I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately. January and February have flown by and I feel like I have accomplished very little despite how busy I’ve been. But my to-do list just keeps growing. Getting organized and gaining a sense of control has become a top priority. Starting with decluttering and organizing a few spaces in my kitchen each day this past week really helped. To keep myself going and on track, I’ve put together a decluttering checklist to use as a guide.
Decluttering
Being neat and tidy isn’t something that comes naturally to me.
I am, however, a fantastic procrastinator!
Unfortunately, this isn’t something to be proud of. But, they say the first step to is admitting you have a problem.
My home to-do list includes another bathroom renovation and fixing a few spaces that just aren’t functioning the way I had hoped. Moving clutter from one space to another will only make the projects harder.
Anything that makes a project unnecessarily harder isn’t my idea of fun.
When I know I need to get things under control and feel overwhelmed with the process, I always start in the same place.
Throwing away the trash!
When the kids were little and I wanted them to help me clean up, I would give them each a bag and send them off to fill it up with trash. Sometimes I would even reward them for filling the most bags.
Now, I find filling a trash bag with obvious trash the easiest place to start. Usually, once I get rid of the trash I feel a sense of accomplishment. Motivation to move on grows from there.
Room by Room
Before I go any further, I should mention “throwing away trash” to me also means separating the actual trash from recycling.
Once the trash (and recycling) is out of the way, it’s time to move on to getting rid of THINGS!
Too many things = clutter.
When it comes to getting rid of clutter, I try to take it room by room. This most recent time, the mudroom was ground zero for me.
Every time I walked into the house, I was assaulted by the chaos of the mudroom. Because of the position of the door from the garage, it’s already hard to get into. Add in everything that accumulated there and there wasn’t room for the shoes and coats!
From there moving into the kitchen was a natural progression. Then the dining room. Next, I will tackle the living room.
Tackling these easier wins first enables me to feel motivated to tackle the bigger clutter collectors… my bedroom and the worst place in the house… my craft room!
What to Declutter
Minimalist is not a word that will ever be used to describe me. And I’m not sure I ever could be a minimalist. However, I would like to have my house less cluttered and easier for me to keep tidy.
And organized.
I want everything to be organized and have a home.
But, before organizing decluttering has to happen. Getting rid of things that don’t take a lot of thought or decision is the best place to start.
While I would really like everything to be decluttered and organized yesterday, the reality is it has to be a little by little process. So, I’ve put together a list of almost 200 things that can easily be decluttered quickly.
The list is broken down by rooms or areas of the home. Plus, I’ve included blank checklists by room. Use the big list to jot down a few things in each room of the house you know you can get rid of.
Then, get to work!
I have reverted to using checklists and find it so rewarding to actually check things off. The feeling of accomplishment propels me to keep going.
Want to Join Me?
You can grab the 8-page guide (actually 16 since it includes a color version and black and white version) in my shop.
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More Resources
Ash Wednesday snuck up on me this year, so I’m a little behind, but I always enjoy participating in #40Bagsin40Days. If you aren’t familiar with it, the basics are to get rid of one bag or box a day for each day of lent. Seeing posts in the Facebook group or on Instagram with the hashtag motivates me to keep up.
If you’ve been living under a rock (or a major pile of clutter, lol) and don’t know what the Marie Kondo method is or what “sparks joy” means, check out the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. There are lots of books out there about getting rid of clutter, I’ve read quite a few of them over the years. Marie’s book is worth reading as it did really help me to think a bit differently about some things.
There is a show on Netflix with the same title. It was also interesting.
Years ago I bought some pop-up bins labeled something like “Keep, Donate, Toss.” In theory, they were great, especially because I could collapse them when not in use. But for the price, they didn’t hold up very well.
And I often felt in order to not have to later sort through the keep and toss bins, I needed more bins. Toss needed to be two, one for actual trash and one for recycling.
Keep needs to be broken down into places what is being kept is headed to! Ultimately, I found pop-ups in several colors (similar to these) to work much better for me. I put a trash bag in one for trash, then use a different color to indicate different family members or rooms to deliver to once I’m done sorting.
Keeping a designated place for donations helps as well. Once a donation bag is filled, I know where to put it. As soon as I start purging, I set up a donation pick-up. Or, I know exactly when the next clothing drive will be! Our PTO hosts a clothing/donation drive every April. It’s a huge fundraiser for our After Prom.
Two to three months prior is the only time of year I let my donation pile accumulate more than a few bags! Most of the time, the faster I can get donations out of the house, the better.
Want to save this for later? Pin the Decluttering Checklist to your favorite Pinterest board.
