Happy New Year!

Welcome back from the holidays. I don’t know about you, but December turned out to be a really hectic time for me. I definitely got away from the things I wanted to work on. But new year, new me! That’s in the past and today is a new day.

Let’s talk about new years resolutions. Do you make them or avoid them like the plague?

Me? I usually make them BUT I try to make attainable resolutions. Let’s face it, going to the gym and getting in shape is only going to last so long before I get out of the habit and bombarded by something else. I shoot for other targets like asking for a promotion at work (during the year), cutting my pizza consumption down in a month, and clearing the clutter at least one area in the house, and creating a clothing donation pile at least once a year.

I love pizza so that one is easy at first and then I usually forget by year end. I’m only human! But those are mostly past years’ resolutions. This year with a baby on the way my sole focus currently is making room for the small human that will occupy part of our house. Yikes!

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Since the day after Christmas we have been going through everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. It has been “clean city” at home. I can finally see the back of the closets in the nursery. Now the furniture has started to arrive and we’re almost ready to start setting it all up.

Common Mistakes for Decluttering

#1: Moving it from Space to Space

Clearing space doesn’t mean moving it from one area to another. To me, it means downsizing your items and getting them out of the house once and for all.

How did we clear space? Well, it wasn’t easy. I started reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. The only advice I can really give from the book is to tackle it all. All your papers, your old books, your clothes…in categories. If your going to clear clutter from your home, you most likely have categories spread throughout your home and not just in one particular area. Truth! This forced me to go through our basement storage, office, bedroom and baby’s room all at once.

It wasn’t the most profound thing I’ve read but it made sense and was practical. I decided that most of the things we’ve decided to store over the years are most likely things we don’t plan on looking at again. Needless to say, it was slightly easy to determine what we could safely donate and not regret.

#2: Buying Storage Containers

I’m not the type of person to go out and buy every organizing tool or box out there. There’s a reason why they sell those: to make money! You sorting away your stuff in to these things gives you the feeling that you’ve cleaned up your space. In reality, all you did was move it around. Clearing the space is cleaning the space. Getting rid of the old and either making room for the new or nothing at all by leaving it minimal.

#3: Keeping Things Just in Case

There will always be a reason to keep that weird and wonderful item that you haven’t used for years – because ‘WHAT IF YOU NEED IT NEXT WEEK?!’

Keeping things just in case is a huge downfall of successful decluttering – but you can stop this by asking a couple of things: –

1. What’s the worst that would happen if I got rid of this right now?
2. Could I borrow/rent this item if I need it in the future?
3. Is the space used to store this item really worth keeping it?

Be realistic. If you really needed it then it would be a simple “YES’, but if you are wavering then chances are that it’s something you feel you SHOULD keep rather than something you really need to keep.

#4: Not Getting Rid of your Clutter Right Away

You’ve done well. You’ve decluttered an area, and have bags of items to take to the garbage, donate, friends etc….

Get them there ASAP. Do not pass go, do not collect $200… (#lovemonopoly!)

It’s all too tempting to go through those bags after a few days and just take a couple of things back… – and things start getting cluttered again.

You’ve made the decision – so finish it by getting it out of the house RIGHT NOW.