Nine Decluttering Tips For a More Organized Home

If you’ve noticed that your home is becoming more difficult to keep tidy and organized due to the sheer amount of items that you own, perhaps it’s time to consider decluttering. It’s very easy for clutter, clothes, and household items to pile up, leading to a messy and visually distracting home. Between dishes, pots, pans, clothes, mail, and electronic gadgets, there is a lot to keep on top of.

Having an organized and decluttered living space has many benefits. Decluttering makes for a more spacious home. A lack of visual clutter creates a calm environment and provides the peace that every home needs. On a practical basis, doing a large scale declutter makes long-term cleaning and organization a lot easier.

It’s also been reported that clutter can negatively affect your mental and physical wellbeing. A study spotted a link between cluttered households and high levels of cortisol (a stress hormone) in its inhabitants. It also claimed that there were lower levels of stress found in those that lived in peaceful and well-organized homes. 

A stressful home can lead to serious health issues. A build-up of stress often creates mental and physical health problems such as anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. It’s important to optimize your environment to facilitate a healthy lifestyle. If the state of your home is negatively effecting your wellbeing, you must prioritize change.

Fortunately, an organized home is easily achieved through decluttering. There are effective ways to transform an overwhelming cluttered space into a well-organized, peaceful area.

If you’ve decided to take action and tackle some of the disorder in your home, here are nine key tips.

Replace bulky furniture

Furniture often dictates the mood of a room. It is also a major contributor to clutter. Furniture that doesn’t match the vibe of a room or items that are overly bulky create significant visual clutter. The placement or location of furniture also has an influence.

Consider replacing bulky furniture with more suitable options. Some of the most important rooms to replace the furniture in are your living room and bedroom. A chunky sofa, chair, or storage unit can make the room feel small. The slightest amount of clutter can make it difficult to relax. 

By selecting appropriate furniture and placing it in useful areas, you can optimize the room. Visual clutter will be reduced, and the room will seem more spacious. 

Recycle and waste habits

Your waste habits have a huge impact on the build-up of clutter in your home. Do a regular sweep of your food storage areas and get rid of used packaging. Assign specific containers or trash cans for certain purposes. For example, designate a regular trash can, food disposal unit, and various recycling bins.

By allocating these waste disposal options, you can instill positive organizational habits when it comes to getting rid of your stuff. 

It can also be useful to find a local charity that you can contribute to. Plenty of organizations accept clothing or household donations to provide for those in need. This not only rids you of items you no longer need, but it also benefits your local society.

Dual-purpose furniture

For a small home or a confined space, furniture that has multiple functions can be the most practical household additions. It maximizes dead space areas that are traditionally hard to make use of, such as under your bed.

Foldable or pull out sofas can operate as a living room relaxation area during the day but serve as a handy bed when you have guests over.

Ottoman furniture is extremely popular, as it perfectly marries stylish furniture and practicality. Their items provide a chic look to your room but double up as storage containers. What’s more, they come in a variety of designs and sizes, meaning they are suited to every room.

Don’t be a hoarder

While many people have tendencies to hoard certain things, some suffer from a hoarding disorder, which can have serious implications on one’s life. It’s important not to place too much value on regular objects.

Be selective about the items that you value. Get into the habit of regularly discarding unnecessary things. It may be difficult at first, but when you realize the positive effects that it’s having on your home, as well as the lack of need for some items, you’ll be glad of your new habit.

Hoarding is the number one cause of clutter. Avoid hoarding and prioritize your space.

Item placement

Although a major aspect of decluttering is to get rid of items, this doesn’t mean that you only hold on to the bare essentials. We need a certain amount of things to live a comfortable and enjoyable life. Allocate areas for regularly store or placing items.

Place items in strategic areas so that they are easy to find. For example, if you wear glasses, you could designate different pairs for different purposes. Leave one pair in the car, and have another for inside the home. This helps with maintaining an organized lifestyle. If you need to buy additional pairs of glasses, look online, and visit websites to find some that suit.

Creating a “foyer” near the entrance of your home provides the perfect space to place items such as hats, jackets, and footwear.

Utilize mirrors

A mirror is another practical installment that can help with decluttering. While mirrors offer day-to-day and decorative use, they also create an illusion of space. Although they cannot physically make a room bigger, they can increase the size perception. This contributes massively to reducing visual clutter.

Obviously, mirrors won’t suit every room of the house, but hallways, bedrooms, and living rooms can benefit from a nice mirror. While increasing visual depth, they also reflect natural light around a room, making it appear more spacious.

Bedroom zen

Your bedroom should be an area of peace and calm. Sleeping in a cluttered room can be difficult, and nobody wants to begin their day by waking up in a cramped and distracting space. Prioritize your bedroom when you’re getting around to decluttering.

Use a laundry basket to prevent dirty clothes from being strewn around the room. Utilize the space under your bed. While it’s important not to place things here and forget about them, people often overlook the space available beneath their bed.

One of the most important areas of your room to organize is the closet. It might take several hours, but it’s vital that you go through each item with a fine-tooth comb and decide whether or not you need it. Once you have cast aside unneeded items, organize and sort the closet in a way that’s easy to maintain.

Tables aren’t for storage

Are you guilty of piling tables high with unnecessary clutter? If so, you’re not alone. The kitchen, dining room, and coffee tables are frequently used to hold newspapers, catalogs, and other items that can build-up over time. This contributes to significant clutter.

Make a rule that the tables in your home are not for storage. Get rid of clutter on your tabletops and replace it with pretty decorative objects or fresh flowers. Instead of being distracting, your tabletops will now enhance the beauty of the room.

Cable management

Technology is ever-present in modern life. People have more gadgets than ever in their homes, TVs are often found in every room, and phone chargers are being used constantly. With this comes an excessive amount of cables.

Cable management is essential for decluttering and organization. Use cable ties, tape, label chords, or a cable box to effectively manage and tidy away your wires.


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Julie Higgins
Author
Julie is a Staff Writer at momooze.com. She has been working in publishing houses before joining the editorial team at momooze. Julie's love and passion are topics around beauty, lifestyle, hair and nails.

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