Does the thought of tackling your whole house and doing a big spring clean fill you with dread? Well, you’re not alone!
There’s no reason why you can’t get out and enjoy the season rather than being stuck at home decluttering or organising your space. The secret to smooth and simple decluttering is not to go too big. Instead, think small. Focus on the things that are creating the most problems in your life at the moment.
Choose the area that is causing you the most pain, whether that it’s the closet, kitchen cupboards, coffee table or a book shelf.
Rather than worry about the whole room at once, do a mini-declutter in that specific area. Spend 15-20 minutes a day decluttering the things you don’t need, use, or are broken. Recycle as much as possible.
Once you have decluttered the area, categorise the items left into similar categories. For example, in the closet, put all of your casual dresses, formal dresses, skirts, t-shirts, tops, etc into different piles.
Then consider what you need to get in terms of storage solutions – do you need proper hangers instead of wire hangers? If so, buy a box of velvet hangers. Do you need boxes to store items that look messy in your kitchen? Take measurements of your shelving and then order boxes to fit that space. Don’t overbuy and try to repurpose existing storage first; you can always buy more if needed.
Before putting your items back, clean the area with a high-quality, nice smelling disinfectant (like Zoflora). This is also the perfect time to put a small amount of pest control paste into the corners of the cupboards to repel bugs from entering them during the summer months.
Put your items back into the cupboards in the categorised sections. Make sure that you can find everything you have in less than five seconds moving forward. If you can’t, check what is in the boxes or different areas and label them. If you don’t have a label machine at home, there are companies who can make the labels for you.
Shelina Jokhiya is founder of the region’s first licenced, professional organising service DeCluttr Me and author of the new book “Can You Find it in Five Seconds?”
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