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Before I created this website, I wrote about decluttering a lot on my other blog Katie Saves. In fact, I still post about the subject quite a lot on Instagram (you can follow me here).
I shared this challenge on my Instagram and in my Facebook Group and it went down a storm, so I thought I would share it with you today along with a free checklist which you can print out yourself and tick off as you go.
When I completed this challenge in November 2019, I got rid of masses of stuff – and since I’d already spent a lot of time decluttering the house leading up to this, I didn’t think I’d have that much to get rid of. How wrong I was! By the end of the month, I got rid of:
The thing is, you can feel like once a room is done, then that’s it.
But to maintain an orderly and clutter-free space, you have to constantly reassess what you have as well as what you’re bringing into the home.
It’s not always feasible to tackle an entire room in one fell swoop, so the idea of this challenge is to tackle a small area each day for 30 days.
Some days the task will be bigger than others, and some won’t be relevant or will require very little attention at all.
But I promise you, by the end of the 30 days if you follow the checklist you will notice a massive difference.
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Table of Contents
Have a box for keep, sell, donate and trash and assign items from the area you are tackling into each box.
Deal with the keep box at the same time and return items to their home on the same day.
You can decide whether to deal with the other 3 boxes then as well, or deal with them in one fell swoop at the end of the 30 days.
Personally, I would advise:
Set a deadline for when you want to sell the items by and when that deadline passes donate. Otherwise the sell boxes can easily be relegated to storage to deal with ‘later’ and ‘later’ will become never and you’ll find yourself having to deal with it all over again at some point in the future.
I use a very simple method for deciding whether to keep something or get rid. If you overthink every decision you’ll end up keeping everything just in case.
Obviously, there are certain categories of items which do require a bit more thought such as sentimental items, but generally speaking – quick, logical decisions are the best.
Use this flowchart as a guide.
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Decluttering unearths a lot of guilt.
Guilt about wasting the money you spent on the item. More guilt about creating waste. Guilt about getting rid of presents someone bought for you.
The thing is, guilt around possessions is a pointless emotion.
That money was wasted the moment you bought the item. Keeping it isn’t going to make that any less true or make the item any more useful.
The item is wasted shoved in a cupboard in your home, at least if you donate it has a chance of being useful to someone else.
We start these challenges with the best intentions and usually the first few days go well before our motivation tails off and fizzles out.
But try to stick it out. Pencil a time slot in your diary to do it each day.
I promise the end result will make it worthwhile.
Good luck! It can be amazing how much of a difference tackling a small area each day can make.
I’d love to hear how you get on. Let know me by email at hello@clutterfreekatie.com or tag me in your before/after photos on social media.
You’ve got this!
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