Get a Head Start on New Year Decluttering with These Tips

If you’re fired up to get every part of your home organized, good for you. You might want to wait until the holidays are done and start once the new year arrives. But why wait? More than likely, you’re going to be pretty tired after all your holiday activities, and that urge to declutter might start to fade. If you get started now, you might be more inclined to really tackle your decluttering project after New Year’s Day.

The experts with Art of Drawers have custom cabinet solutions that can make reorganizing your kitchen, pantry, or bathroom a whole lot easier. If you would like to learn more, you can use our online form or give us a call at (770) 800-8410

Start by Clearing Off All Flat Surfaces

These could be the biggest culprits when it comes to clutter in your home – they’re definitely the most obvious. You might not be able to walk past a table or a desk without seeing piles of stuff you no longer need. There could be a cluttered dining table or a dresser, or your kitchen counters might be overflowing. You might even have resorted to putting things in chairs. 

Here are a couple of tips to help you approach this part of your decluttering process.

Start small, focusing on one surface first. Just pick one – let’s say the desk in your den. Once you’ve organized that spot, start on the next. Remember, just worry about one flat surface at a time. 

Next, take a good look at exactly what kind of clutter you have. For example, do you have mail piling up on your kitchen counter? Is there a handbag or two, as well as two sets of keys? That’s a sign you could use a separate storage spot for all of them. Maybe you could add a couple of key hooks to the wall by the back door, or a little basket to store your envelopes – the ones you don’t need to throw away, of course.

Choose a Decluttering Strategy

Clearing off the flat surfaces is a great start, but it’s probably only a small part of your overall decluttering project. In order to have your best chance of success, you’re going to need to determine the best possible strategy. 

There are a lot of people who actually make a living advising people how to declutter. These gurus have their own methods – and they’ve not only proven to be immensely popular, they also work. Here’s a quick look at just a few.

Marie Kondo

She’s a professional organizer (yes, there is actually such a thing) who recommends organizing your strategy by category, rather than by room. These categories are the following: papers, sentimental items, clothes, miscellaneous items, and books.

Her basic philosophy is this – while decluttering, hold up a specific item you’re thinking of getting rid of and ask yourself whether or not it brings you joy. If it does, set it aside while you figure out where to put it. If it doesn’t, it might be time to say goodbye. 

Joshua Becker

Joshua Becker, on the other hand, recommends the room-by-room strategy. He believes you should start in rooms that are the easiest to declutter – the ones you use the most. The point of this strategy is that if you start with the rooms you frequently use, you’ll instantly see the benefits of decluttering. That, in turn, will give you more motivation to tackle your entire home.

Peter Walsh

Peter Walsh believes you can declutter a room in five steps – but the first one is a doozy. Here they are:

1.     Completely empty the entire room – everything. 
2.     Create a “vision” for the room. Ask yourself what you want that room to accomplish.
3.     Decide what you want to keep, and what you want to get rid of.
4.     Take the items that are causing clutter and either donate them or put them in the trash.
5.     Return the items to the room.

Utilize All Storage Space

One of the best ways to declutter, regardless of whether you choose one of the strategies above or something else, is to get organized. In order to do that, you’re going to really have to take a long, hard look at your storage space. Are you getting the most out of it? Or has it become so hopelessly decluttered that you can’t even fit anything else inside? 

The only way to attack this problem is head-on. So, the first thing to do is purge the area. You might have to make some hard choices, but that’s the only way you’re going to accomplish your goal. If you can’t bear to throw something away, see if you can find it a new home with a friend or a family member. Maybe you can donate something to charity. As long as it works or still serves a purpose, you probably won’t have to discard it completely. 

Designate a Place for Necessary Overflow Clutter 

It’s important to realize that no matter how much you declutter, there are some things that will be sort of in-between. You might not need them at the moment, but they’re still very usable, and it wouldn’t make any sense to throw them away. Think of these items as “necessary clutter.”

But where will you put that necessary clutter? You could consider upgrading your storage space by having new drawers installed. You could even have them in areas you might not have thought about before, such as under a sink. 

Create a New Organization System with Art of Drawers

If you talk to an expert with Art of Drawers before going full-bore into your decluttering project, it could very well make things go a lot faster, and a lot easier. We create customized solutions, creating storage areas in places such as bathrooms, kitchens, laundry rooms, and others, that most people have never considered. 

We can install, for example, pull-out drawers that help maximize vertical space, and make organizing a great deal easier. We could install a U-shaped drawer under your kitchen sink, giving you yet another option to store items that you can’t find a home for anywhere else in your home.

Explore your options by getting in touch with Art of Drawers. You can contact us online or call (770) 800 8410.