How to Declutter Your Home When You Don’t Really Want To

How to declutter your home

The hardest part of decluttering is getting motivated to start and staying motivated to keep going once you do! Don’t let procrastination and excuses keep you from making progress. Here’s how to declutter your home when you don’t really want to:

• Don’t allow yourself to put it off because you think it’s going to take too long. Simply start by committing to 20 minutes a day. That’s less time than an episode of your favorite sitcom! Set a timer and keep going until it goes off.
• Don’t get discouraged. Instead of thinking of how much you have to do, take it all in bite-size pieces. Just do one drawer, one shelf at a time until you are done. The day that you are finally finished will come sooner than you realize as long as you keep chipping away!
• Don’t try to clean as you go – it’ll slow you down. When you see the floor needs mopping or a counter needs wiping, don’t let that get you off track. Instead, focus on how much easier it will be to get – and keep – your entire home clean once you have decluttered.
• Instead of pondering Where do I start?, just start anywhere. Start in the least cluttered room so finishing it quickly motivates you to continue. Start in the room you can’t clean up because it’s too cluttered. Start in the room you spend most of your time in to resume normalcy. Just start today.
• Once you get started, the momentum will keep you going.  It didn’t happen overnight; you can’t fix it overnight. Just keep it up. On the days you feel less productive, make a list of what needs to be done and choose a chore at random by pointing at it before you look at the paper. Then, reward yourself (but not by bringing in new stuff!) for completing your chore.
• You should never keep anything out of guilt, even if it was a gift. Grant yourself permission to release things you may have once loved or wanted or needed but no longer do.