Organize, Pack, Purge, Repeat: How to Declutter Your Space and Your Life

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Key Takeaways

• Decluttering is both practical and freeing, helping create pleasant, capacious spaces and bringing clarity and peace to our lives.
• It calls for listing and prioritizing untidy areas to tackle, picking out essential items, and organizing them using systems that make daily life easier.
• Items not regularly used or not yet ready for tossing can be packed and stored away at home or rented off-site storage.
• If anything doesn’t serve a purpose, donate, sell, recycle, or toss it out.
• Declutter regularly for a calmer home and life.

Time and again, we fall into the habit of holding onto things we don’t need, displacing items, shopping mindlessly, and even putting off cleaning. Before we know it, our living and working spaces are drowning in clutter. And it’s not just about our spaces looking untidy, but how heavy life can feel.

Life changes often force us to confront the mess. Whether you’re trying to create more space for a growing family, preparing for a move, or just craving a calmer space, decluttering offers multiple benefits.

The Value of Decluttering

Decluttering can be both liberating and practical. The spaces where we create memories with our family and friends, work, eat, and unwind deserve to stay neat.

An orderly space isn’t just pleasing to the eye, but also clears your mind and reduces stress. It limits decision fatigue when you have to pick out clothes and other items. And if you plan to move, decluttering is a brilliant way to simplify packing, reduce costs, and start fresh in a new home.

That’s why we need to decide what truly deserves a home in our space and what doesn’t. Decluttering methods are plenty, but at its core, it’s really about organizing what we need, packing away the nonessentials, letting go of what doesn’t serve us, and making these habits a lifestyle.

Ordering the Essentials

One of the first steps to achieving a clutter-free space and life is selecting the things you truly need and organizing them well.

Start Small

Decluttering can feel daunting. But you don’t have to tackle everything at once. Come up with a checklist of all the cluttered rooms and their sub-areas, and pick a room to start with.

This is where your priorities, energy, and motivation come into play. You can start with the least or most messy. In that room, go even smaller, like maybe start with a drawer that’s been stressing you for months, rather than being all over the place.

Sort Items

Go item by item, deciding what truly belongs in that drawer, based on use and joy. It helps to categorize things into piles such as “keep”, “maybe”, “donate”, “sell”, and “toss”.

Ask yourself:

• Do I really use this item? When last did I use it?
• Do I enjoy it?

If it’s “yes” to one or both, the item goes into your “keep” pile.

It’s not uncommon to hold onto items of sentimental value. While they can be hard to let go of, doing so often brings unexpected relief. Decide if you truly need a certain item. For instance, do you really need those baby clothes that belonged to your now-grown-up children or that instrument you never touch?

A great alternative here is to take photos of keepsakes for digital upkeep. But if you’re still not ready to let go of an item, you can put it in the “maybe” category for storage.

Create Organization Systems

Put the “keep” pile items back where they belong. For each area, it’s essential to create organizational systems that maintain order and that make daily life easier.

For instance, buy storage solutions like bins, boxes, and shelving units, or find temporary or reusable ones at home, like multi-purpose furniture. Keep whatever you use frequently easily accessible.

Have systems that tackle small messes before they pile up. For instance, you could have filing systems for documents that come in, containers for bills, keys, pens, etc.

Pack Away the Nonessentials

Photo by Karola G from Pexels

You’ll most likely find items that you don’t use regularly or that you’re not ready to let go of yet. These may be seasonal and sentimental items, large furniture, and so forth.

Pack them away neatly in boxes, suitcases, and other storage solutions. It helps to group similar items, and label containers clearly like “toys”, “books”, etc. If space allows it, properly store them away in different home areas, like the attic, basements, garage, etc.

If you’re short on space, you can pay for an off-site, temporary storage solution where your items will be kept safe. Keep a list of all these items and review them, once in a while, say, every six months, to see if you still need them. This keeps your home clutter-free while you decide what stays for good.

Letting Go

Purge anything that doesn’t serve you anymore, both in your home and life. Consider:

• Donating items still in good condition to trusted charities
• Putting valuable items up for sale online on eBay, Facebook Marketplace, etc.
• Throwing away broken, outdated items and anything else you don’t need.
• Giving recyclable items to recycling centers

Repeat and Refresh

Life changes, so do your space needs. Repeat the above decluttering steps, not only out of necessity, but also regularly to maintain a calm, clutter-free energy. Schedule time for it, whether it’s ten minutes daily or a huge chunk of time every week.

Final Thoughts

Less clutter creates more breathing room in your space and peace in your mind. It’s all about organizing the essentials, packing away the non-urgent items, letting go of what doesn’t serve you, and making decluttering a habit.