8 Awesome Five-Minute tips to Start Decluttering Your Home

photo credit: Merelymel13

Getting everything clean and organized is a fairly tough job. But simple proper planning can easily cleanup the mess and let you concentrate on working. Many magazines, blogs,etc all have covered this topic but they don’t tell why we can’t declutter even after trying many times.

Simply because they don’t tell that you should start small… instead of making a huge GTD list which usually ends up in a dustbin. You can’t declutter yourself in one day, it takes time, practice and persistence. No matter how small the step, it’s a start, which is important!

Starting from the first week, dedicate five minutes daily to cleaning your home. Add another five next week, this way keep adding five minutes at a time for cleaning. Gradually your mind, body will get accustomed and will be able to intake more. Here’s how you can start decluttering your home, five minutes at a time.

1. Clean your dishes as soon as you have completed your meal. Usually we keep those dishes in the sink and they end up there for a long time until it starts smelling! It won’t take more then five minutes to cleanup. It’ll take even less time if all you need to do is stack the dishwasher.

2. Completed washing dishes, now wipe the kitchen benches, tables etc. Don’t let your mind take you out of the kitchen, make sure you maximize your output in that period of motivation.

3. Sell or donate things that are old and you won’t need them. Usually people tend to pile up old stuffs in there store rooms, drawers, cupboards, which leads to clutter. Think about this, will you need those pair of socks that you use when you were going to school, unless you are really emotionally attach to those pair of socks, it’s no use keeping them. Clean your closets, drawers of old items not dump them in your truck and either sell or donate them.

4. Pull out some clothes you don’t wear. We don’t were jackets or sweeter at summer time, do we! Just take five minutes to short out the unnecessary clothes and pack the ones that you won’t need. Also remove the clothes that you haven’t worn for a while.

5. Place your paper clutter in boxes if you won’t need them. Most of us have tendency to leave newspapers, magazines etc at tables, beds after reading and with time they keep piling up. Do we need those age old magazines, newspapers. Send them to your nearest recycling center, it hardly takes five minutes.

6. Teach your kids why they should keep things properly. Most of us having kids seem to have the problem of disorganization. Start teaching them the habit of putting things where they belong, don’t assume your kids will learn it overnight. With patience they will gradually understand, also setting examples yourself is a great way to get them into habit.

7. Use boxes to store magazines, toys and other random things that otherwise just lies around. Label the boxes so that you don’t have any problem finding the proper one. Will that take five minutes.

8. When a system is going for you don’t change anything. Keep in mind adding something new to your system can mess it completely, so be extra careful.

Decluttering life can be painful while you are at it. Just give your body, mind to adjust with the changes, don’t try doing too many things to fast. I’m sure many of us have managed to make there life uncluttered. I’ll love to hear how you went through it and please do comment if you liked or disliked the article.

If you liked this article, please bookmark it in del.icio.us or Stumbleit . Thanks!

It seems like you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!