Great article found at www.declutterdiva.info! They've got some great decluttering advice there! :)
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Are you embarrassed by the state of your house and need some quick decluttering ideas? If when your door bell rings your first reaction is to panic at the thought of whoever is there seeing your cluttered and messy house, you certainly do! Having a cluttered and disorganized house when guests come over can be humiliating at best. Solve that problem by implementing a few of these quick decluttering ideas!
- Make yourself declutter and organize one shelf in one closet every day until they are done.
- Walk around your cluttered house with a decent sized box and determine to FILL IT with stuff you will donate to a charity (and then make sure you drop it off or arrange pick up right away!)
- Create an “in-box” for your incoming mail and a “need to process box” for those bills you need to pay or papers to be filed yet.
- Fill a garbage bag with items to discard. Don’t stop until it’s full.
- If you have “too many” special knick-knacks, choose a certain amount to display and rotate through your stash throughout the year. For example, every 2 months, switch them up!
- Clean the floor… the whole floor. This will force you to get everything up and off of it – the perfect reminder to put stuff away instead of putting it back down where it was.
- Set a timer for 10 minutes and see what you can accomplish in that time. Do this every day and watch the clutter disappear slowly but surely!
- Pick up 5 items and put them in their proper place. Make yourself do this once every morning and once every evening.
- Make a rule for yourself that if you impulse buy something, you have to get rid of something else. (Don’t build up clutter!)
- Learn to file quickly. Paper clutter adds up very fast.
- Dump everything out of the junk drawer and only put back in the things that truly need to go there. Put everything else away in the proper spot again.
- Remove the clothing that does not fit you right now from your closet. Box up and store only the classic pieces that will never go out of style. Get rid of the trendy pieces.
- Take a 30 Day DeClutter Challenge
- Sort through your medicine cabinet and dispose of all of the past-expiry-date items.
- Minimize photo frames. Purchase a multi-photo frame for the wall and clear up space on your shelf. These also look much less busy on the wall than do 5 or 6 individual frames.
- Write a basic menu for the next 2 weeks to use up the build-up in your pantry.
- Recycle the catalogue pile. You can find what you need online.
- Check out resources to that will help you declutter fast!
- Set up an automatic bill payment system online.
- Make a certain cluttered room worthy of something beautiful, like fresh flowers! (Reward system.)
These are only 20 quick decluttering ideas to get you started organizing and decluttering your home. It can be a difficult task but be patient with yourself, measure the successes, and keep your goal in mind. Visualize your clutter-free home room by room, and work hard so you can enjoy your home once again. You’ll never again have that panic feeling when you have people drop in unexpectedly, but instead will open wide the door and say “come on in” with pride!
Declutterdiva.info suggests you take a quick look at the great advice found in “DECLUTTER FAST”, an ebook with incredible advice on how to get and stay clutter-free. I promise you’ll love it!