6 Decluttering Tips to usher in the Lunar New Year in 2020

1/17/2020

As we move into a new year, its time to declutter our living quarters too! May I present to you 6 helpful decluttering tips to help you get back in track and enjoy your lovely home once again!



Decluttering and organizing is unlike house cleaning because it involves much more than just detergents, and cleaning equipment. It is not as simple as wiping away dust, sweeping away dirt, taking things and placing them back to where they belonged.

It requires the careful retrieval of each individual items, and asking yourself some basic but necessary and fundamental questions which I will cover in awhile.



Let's look at some tips to help you do this!

#1: Declutter room by room - Start with the room with the least clutter/items
.
I recommend you to do this room by room. You can start with the room with the least clutter so that you can clear it off faster. This also gives you a sense of achievement, making you want to declutter the rest of your rooms. You can also further break it down into areas such as - Toilet 1, Toilet 2. Room 1, Room 2. Living Room TV Console area, Sofa area, Kitchen Cabinets 1, 2, Shelf 1, Shelf 2 etc.

#2: As with all chores, set yourself a reasonable deadline to complete the task. Break the big task, into small bite sized task.

Knowing that we are all huge procrastinators and love to use the word "Later". Allocate a deadline to complete each area or room. You can dedicate a day to tidy up each room or a few hours each day to tidy up a specific area within your room. (E.g. - During my busy periods, I spend only a few hours each day to declutter parts of my wardrobe within my bedroom) I also give myself a deadline to complete decluttering the whole bedroom. E.g.- 1 week. Be practical as not all of us have the time to sit home all day and spent it by just organizing our stuff. Some days, we might have to totally skip the project as we have something else to do.



#3: Involve your family in the decluttering if you are not living alone. 
Having more family members to help out means spending lesser time. The house is a place for the family members to live in. Everyone have a part to play. Besides, everyone has their own things so they should be involved in at least the clearing of their own items. You can also dedicate each area of the house to specific members. E.g.- Everyone can tidy their own rooms.




#4: Categorize all your items accordingly.
Move all the items in the area or room out from their shelves, cubicles or drawer. You can then sort out the items after  keeping them into temporary boxes or spaces for organizing later.
E.g - Paper documents, food, make-up products, skincare, clothes, bags and accessories etc.


#5: For items which belonged to each category, split them into 3 parts. Items to keep, donate or giveaway and items to trash.
Keep trash bags ready so you can throw away things which you do not require anymore. Maybe they have met their expiry dates, maybe they are no longer functional or you simply do not want them anymore.

Questions to ask yourself during decluttering:
1) Do I need this item in the next 3-6months?

- If yes: How often would I use them?
> If regular, store within areas of sight, organize them properly in transparent or visible containers so that they can be reached easily.

> If sometimes, you may store them away is higher areas. You may keep them in tightly covered box but remember to label the box so that it is easier for you to reach out to them later on.

- If no: What do you plan to do with this item?
> You can choose to give them away to your family and friends OR …

> Donate them to the needy. We frequently encounter people from welfare groups going door to door to collect clothing, bedsheets, shoes and even electronic products. All you have to do is to leave these items neatly packed in a bag and place the pamphlet on top of the bag and they will collect it on the stipulated date and time. We have recently cleared out 5 bags of clothing which we had kept over the years. These excludes the clothing which we had decided to trash away due to changes in material, colour, wear and tear.

@Tip: For sentimental items, although you may not be using them anymore. I recommend you to keep them away in a box. You can repurpose them, or choose to dedicate a small area within your home to even display some of these items such as certificates, presents from your loved ones or decorative and display items. You should deal with this group of items the last as they tend to stow time.





#6: Get ready your boxes, storage containers, book stands and file holders to store your items neatly with an ease of retrieval latter.

I prefer to use transparent or visible containers, so when I need to retrieve the items, I can see at one glance what is in the containers. I however, tend to use cardboard boxes, labelling them, so I can easily keep these items, stacking them together and keeping them away when I don't use them.

@Tip: For clothing which you will only wear occasionally (e.g.- only worn during travels to cold climates or for certain events or functions), you can keep them in a vacuumed bag and stow them away neatly under your bed or on top of your wardrobe where you will not need to specifically reach out for. These storage bags when stacked together, are also mega space-savers!

@Tip: You don't have to spend bombs on getting these boxes and containers. Think of repurposing what you might already have at home such as cardboard boxes, tissue boxes or gift boxes etc. Think of upcycling them into useful storage containers. Try to get boxes of similar size so that you can stack them together when you keep your items.

@Tip: For home organizing items, some common places to get them includes : Daiso, Muji, Toyogo, Japan Home and Ikea. There are also other places, but these are the places where I frequent and find them more accessible. Items from Muji are on the higher side while the rest are more affordable.





What are some of the tips which you have when it comes to decluttering your space? Do share with me too!

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Disclaimer:
1) This article is written by me.
2) All photographs on this site belongs to the property of Pexel.com.
3) Tips provided is 100% based on my personal experience and way of organizing things.

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