Welcome, 2022! The start of a new calendar year gives many of us extra motivation to be the best version of ourselves. To eat healthily, be more active, or maybe be more organized. I personally delight in all the stories and small victories I see and hear all around me about how people have been able to unload their extra possessions and now feel better. This is worth celebrating!
But sometimes it may feel like the clutter has crept back in just a few months later and all our hard work seems to be for nothing. So I wanted to write a post about how to stay clutter-free after the original purge.
Use the KonMari Method
First, I highly recommend you use the KonMari Method to go through your possessions. I am of course biased but I used to be one of those people who were endlessly decluttering, year after year, with no end in sight. This changed the moment I came across Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up.
You can be successful in your decluttering journey with many different decluttering styles but here are the reasons why the KonMari Method makes your success stick:
You go through your belongings one category at a time (for example all shoes, even the ones that are hiding in the forgotten corners) rather than one closet, cupboard, or room at a time. Nothing will be forgotten.
You go through every single item you own and physically touch them. This will truly make you see how much you have. Also, you never want to do this again 😉
You ask “Does this spark joy?”. You’re not asking “is it practical”, “does it work”, or “could I possibly find a use for it one day”.
You thank the items you let go of. You realize how much you have and feel grateful.
You organize items by category so you always know everything I have is right here.
You organize items in an upright position if possible. This saves space and makes items easier to see.
So now that your home houses only those items that spark joy to at least one of its inhabitants, how do we maintain it? Here are 5 steps to follow to stay clutter-free after your initial declutter:
1. One In - One Out
After you finish decluttering, you never want to revert back - right?! So before you bring a new pen or a pan or something else into your home, stop and ask yourself the following: Do I really need it or is it just a want? What is the new item replacing? How do I get rid of the old item it is replacing? Where will this new item live? So buy a new t-shirt, let go of an old t-shirt.
One in, one out also works for tax papers. When new tax papers come in, recycle the oldest year you have stored.
2. Limit What Enters Your Home
Overall, be very selective about what you let inside your home and know that if you don’t make a decision about the item before it enters your home you will have to make the decision later. Help your future self by asking these questions:
Mail. What do I actually need or want out of this pile? Recycle everything you can immediately. If your insurance company sends you important information that is translated into 5 different languages, only save the pages you truly need.
Freebies. Do I actually need or want this? Or do I just feel like I have to take it simply because it is free, out of habit? Or do I take it to be polite? Nothing is free. Recognize that if you choose to bring a “free” item home you are choosing to store it in your home, maintain it and make another decision about it later on. Decide if it’s worth it. If not, politely decline.
Kids’ treasures. My kids love finding sticks, rocks, leaves, bottle caps, and other random stuff. And I love seeing their joyous faces when they discover their treasures. But before we step inside our home I simply ask them if they still want to keep it. Sometimes the answer is yes and sometimes the answer is no. If they do want to keep it, it’s okay but we have designated areas for them. 95% of the time my kids do not play or even touch the “treasures” they brought home ever again so periodically I will dispose of them to make room for new ones.
3. Spending Break
Simply put, it’s much easier to stay clutter-free if we buy fewer things. Sometimes we need to take a break from all the shopping to recognize when we’re shopping for an actual need and when we’re not. An average American home is estimated to have over 300,000 items and we collectively spend about $1.2 trillion per year on non-essential items. Clearly, we don’t need it all.
I quite naturally decided to buy nothing for a month after I had finished my family’s tidying festival. I was just amazed to see I had everything I could possibly need, including soap and other necessities, for a very, very long time. Why was I still buying things? It was also eye-opening to realize there is no reason to hang out at a shopping street if you’re not hungry and you don’t need anything.
4. Embrace Limited Space
Most of us wish we had more space but I will argue less space can work for your advantage. Let the number of cupboards, shelves, closets, and drawers form the boundaries. Only buy or keep what you can comfortably store! This includes pantry items, consumables, or anything you’re afraid to run out of. Store’s are there to manage inventory so that you don’t have to.
Decide in advance how many bins of say holiday decorations or kids’ art you want to keep. If more comes in and the lid no longer closes, then decide what needs to go.
5. Donation Zone
To make passing things along as easy as possible after the initial decluttering, create a donation zone. This doesn’t have to be anything elaborate or fancy, a cardboard box in the closet will do. The point is that whenever you come across something that no longer serves you, you can easily put it in a box, move on with your day and forget about it. When the box is full donate, or sell, what's inside.
It can be good to mentally go through what type of items are risking to clutter your home again. Is it paper? Think about how you could best mitigate that. Is it kids clothes and toys that they keep outgrowing? Have a person or a place in mind to pass along any kids’ stuff that’s still in good condition as soon as they outgrow them. Is it freebies? Ask yourself why you feel drawn to take it and say “no thank you” more often in the future. Or do you simply keep buying more stuff? Why? Perhaps a reset is needed to break a shopping habit.
To stay clutter-free you have to be clear about what kind of clutter tends to accumulate in your home and most importantly why, and then put systems in place to prevent it.
I hope this helps, good luck!
Since many of us consider clutter-free homes to also be tidy homes, tips for a tidy home will follow on my next blog post.