Especially if you have a family, it can get to a point where you feel exhausted by the sheer amount of clearing and cleaning you do, only to have the mess reappear within a week. In reality, you likely just have too much stuff, and if you’re not actively removing items from the home or storing them away, no amount of effort will solve your problems.
Naturally, doing so much work with little payoff – alongside all the other stressors you’ll have in your life – can easily take its toll. If you’re at a loss with what to do, this article is for you. Here are three tips for dealing with a home full of stuff!
Take Things One Step at a Time
Any home cleaning and clearing project will seem unmanageable if you bite off more than you can chew. When you’ve got a house full of stuff, it’s important to realise that the issue will take time to sort out; it didn’t get there overnight, and it won’t take twenty-four hours to get things back to normal.
Start as small as you can. Pick the smallest room, and then choose one small area of that room to focus on. This could just be one draw, and you’ll be surprised by how much completing just this one task will spur you on to do the rest.
Categorise Everything
Once you’re at the stage where you’re tackling the bulk of a room, it’s important to have a system for sorting each item you pick up.
To make things simple, get yourself four cardboard boxes and label them ‘Keep’, ‘Donate’, ‘Sell’, and ‘Discard’, respectively. From here, simply begin sorting, and when you fill a box, empty it into larger ones of the same category and repeat the process. About halfway through, you’ll need to do a trip to the dump, attic, and the charity shops. The beauty of this method is its methodical nature – if you stick a podcast on or your favourite music, you’ll find that the time flies by.
Utilise Self Storage
You’ll oftentimes come across items that you don’t want to throw away or sell, but that you simply don’t have any room for, and the best thing to do with these is put them into storage.
A dedicated self-storage site will keep your belongings safe and secure in monitored environments, and they’re usually very affordable. You can then decide what to do with them at a later date.
These sorts of services are also great for those who don’t have a garage or available attic space. Many people use them for storing Christmas decorations, for example, and there are a variety of different container sizes to suit any requirement or budget.
Wrapping Up
By employing these simple tips, you should have a much more straightforward experience with clearing the mess that’s accumulated in your home. It’ll take some time to get there, but having gone through the process strategically, you won’t have to worry about having to do it again anytime soon. Good luck!