Downsize and Declutter Your Home with These Organizational Tips

Are you hoping to reorganize a certain room in your house? Maybe you're moving into a new home and you're trying to rid your current house of any/all unnecessary items? Or perhaps you've grown tired of never knowing where important items are because they've gotten lost in a sea of clutter? The reason isn't important. What is important, however, is that you've decided to do something about it. If you're ready to downsize and declutter, Brookings Home Team is here to help with tips for organizing your home.

The Advantages to Decluttering and Downsizing

After a stressful week at work, spending part of your weekend cleaning and organizing your house doesn't sound like much fun. What does it mean to declutter or downsize? While they aren't exactly the same thing, they share the same end goal: less of everything. Having fewer possessions will almost undoubtedly lead to less cleaning, less organizing, less stress, and less debt. Yes, less debt!

Stress Less

Decluttering equals less stress. Not only can a messy living space steal your motivation, but things such as papers on the countertops, dishes in the sink, and laundry on the floor can also increase your anxiety.

Organize Less

Decluttering equals less organizing. Are you constantly losing your car keys? Phone? Remote control? These things will turn up missing less often after a little decluttering. Find a designated place for your household items and belongings and you'll be able to call off these unnecessary search parties.

Clean Less

Decluttering equals less cleaning. As we just mentioned, the thought of cleaning can be stressful. Why not do less of it? Prioritize the things you need and the things you can live without, and there will be a lot less junk to clean around, saving you time for the activities you actually enjoy doing.

Spend Less

Decluttering equals less spending. Fewer possessions mean more money in your pocket and less time worrying about the other chores listed above. Although it's perfectly fine to treat yourself every once in a while, it's also wise to ask yourself whether or not you actually need the object you're buying.

A Downsizing and Decluttering Strategy

While you can find plenty of home organization tips on the Internet, here is an important piece of advice: Have some type of game plan as you declutter each room of your house. The three-box strategy is a popular method due to its simplicity and it makes the thought of downsizing a lot less scary.

Stay Box

After you finish cleaning and organizing each room, the items in this box will go back to their designated spot.

Go Box

As the name of this box implies, these will be items that need to go. This could mean they should go in the trash or recycling bin, should be sold online or at a garage sale, or should be donated to a local charity.

Storage Box

Just like the "stay" box, these are items you will keep after you've cleaned and organized every room. The only difference is you will put these things in storage containers, label them or use an inventory sheet, and place the containers in your attic, basement, closet, or wherever you have extra storage space.

Tips for Downsizing and Decluttering Individual Rooms

Now that we've established why it's beneficial to declutter your home and how you can go about doing it, let's discuss how to organize each room of your house.

Tips for Organizing the Living Room

This may seem like a daunting task, depending on the size of your home, but a cluttered living room can make it hard to relax and/or entertain. Below are tips for organizing your living room:

Create more storage opportunities with shelves, baskets, and furniture such as a trunk or ottoman.
Untangle the wires behind your entertainment system. Not only is a mess of cables visually unappealing, but it also makes for a stressful situation if you need to troubleshoot one of your electronic devices.
Re-evaluate your decor. If your living room seems small or cluttered, you may have too many pillows and throws, wall hangings, and knick-knacks on your end tables.
Identify items that don't belong in the living room and put them back in their proper place.

Tips for Organizing Your Bedroom

Since fewer people actually see your bedroom clutter can build up fast. Kitchen dishes on the nightstand. Bathroom items on your dresser. Clothes lying on the floor. Below are tips for organizing your bedroom:

Empty all drawers and determine what you need, what can be donated, and what belongs in a different room.
Keep flat surfaces like nightstands and dressers clear, except for essential items like lamps and picture frames.
Similar to the living room, you can create storage opportunities with a trunk or ottoman at the foot of your bed.
Store items underneath your bed, but be careful, as this can escalate quickly. Keep your items in plastic containers or storage bins to avoid reverting back to when you were a messy adolescent.

Tips for Organizing Your Closet

Organizing and/or cleaning out your closet is the perfect opportunity to sell or donate any unworn clothing. Ask yourself these three questions when organizing your closet:

What is the condition? Is the piece of clothing faded, stained, or torn?
Which clothes still fit?
When was the last time I wore this?

Tips for Organizing the Kitchen

The kitchen is generally the most used room in your home and clutter can build up quickly. Below are tips for organizing your kitchen:

Clear everything off your kitchen countertops, leaving only essential appliances and frequently-used utensils.
Relocate everything that you cleared off the countertops. This is a great opportunity to remove all non-kitchen items from the room.
Divide your kitchen into zones, creating a designated area for similar items. For example, a drawer for utensils and flatware, a cupboard for Tupperware, and a shelf for baking supplies.
Get rid of expired goods and items that you rarely use. If you're unsure about an item just put it in a storage container and ship it off to the attic or closet.

Tips for Organizing the Bathroom

For this space, most of the work relates to rearranging and throwing out expired or rarely used products. Below are tips for organizing your bathroom:

Perform an audit. Decide which items you still use and what can be donated.
Be sure to throw away any/all expired products.
Clear off the counter and empty the drawers, closet, and vanity (if applicable).
Just like your kitchen, put similar items in the same place. This will help you stay organized and make things much easier to find.

Tips for Organizing Your Home Office

As more and more people start working from home, the home office is another golden opportunity for clutter. This is understandable considering you spend the majority of your day here. However, kids filtering in and out, lunch breaks at your desk, and mountains of loose papers can make finding things a little more difficult. Below are tips for organizing your home office:

Clear out all drawers and perform an audit of what you need and what you don't. When you replace these items, use the zoning method, putting similar items in the same spot.
Remove all unnecessary items from the surface of your desk.
Organize your loose papers.
Create a designated area for mail, time-sensitive documents, and any other paperwork that will require immediate action.
Create digital records by scanning documents and then shred them when you're done.
Put older documents like tax records in a box or plastic container and then store them away in the attic, closet, or basement.
Untangle the cords behind your desk. Just like your entertainment center in the living room, a mess of wires behind your desk can be unpleasant to look at (and a nightmare if you need to move or troubleshoot a device).

You can call it downsizing. You can call it decluttering. You can call it whatever you'd like. It doesn't matter if you're moving into a new house or simply need to reorganize your current home, decluttering and downsizing are an inevitable part of life. But try not to think of it as work. While some people use decluttering as a practice in gratitude for the possessions in their life, others actually find the process meditative. Most importantly, it shouldn't feel like a chore. Crank up the tunes, break out your best dance moves, and start reorganizing your home.