How to Reduce Clutter at Home

Have you been trying to keep ahead of the clutter in your home? Are feeling like it is impossible? Here a few quick and easy ways to reduce the clutter and make your home more relaxing.

Instructions

Reduce Paperwork

1. One of the keys to reducing the paperwork clutter in your home is to try to only look at your mail once. When you pick up your mail from the mailbox, find what items you can discard immediately and do so.

2. If you are able to, look at the items immediately and organize them according to whom the items are for. Have a designated area to drop off the mail for each family member so you do not have to look at it again.

3. Place all other items in on a desk or in a designated area for doing your paperwork. For your own items, organize your mail according to bills, entertainment and personal items.

4. Review your entertainment items and immediately place magazines on the coffee table or another place you enjoy reading them. Quickly review the other entertainment media and throw away any of them you do not plan on using.

5. Go through your bills at one designated time. Process them and file them immediately. Make it a habit to not have bills lying around.

Stay on Top of the Kitchen

1. Keep in mind that a common cluttered area of the home is the kitchen. Dishes tend to pile up quickly. Make a point to first improve your kitchen clutter by keeping up with the dishes. Make it a point to have all dishes cleaned before you go to bed. Next, make it a rule in the home to have used dishes go immediately into the dishwasher. It is surprising how these two points make a big difference.

2. Promptly return all food and other household items from off of the kitchen table and counters as soon as they are used. It is easy to leave a box of cereal or scissors from a craft project lying around. Make a point of promptly returning each item once it has been used.

3. Another way to reduce clutter in the all-too-often cluttered kitchen is to not allow anything to be left in the kitchen. School bags, purses, mail and any other common clutter items should have a designated place to be put away. It is much more relaxing to be in a neat and uncluttered kitchen when the day’s work is not right in front of you.

Tackle Your Primary Clutter Spots

1. Evaluate the items in areas where you tend to find clutter. Ask yourself if any of the items could go anywhere else. If they can, do not allow those items to sit there for very long.

2. If the items you find do not have anywhere else to go, find a way to organize that area. Some organizing ideas for those areas might be a set of stackable drawers for supplies or a decorative bowl for storing keys and loose change. Once everything has a home, it is much easier to remain uncluttered.

3. A common frustration is the clutter other family members leave around the house. Make it a point to help them find a place to put away everything they have as well. If your spouse tends to leave everything from his pockets by the bed each evening, put a decorative box by the bed to store and hide away anything that might leave clutter.

4. As you make strides to reduce your clutter, limit yourself to one designated (and tucked away) clutter spot if you have a hard time keeping up with the above points. Limit your clutter spot to one limited area, such as a laundry basket or a desktop. As needed, place the clutter in that one spot and promptly empty it as soon as possible. That way, your home is primarily clutter-free and everyone knows where to go for their “missing items.” As you make strides to improve, try to make the clutter spot smaller and smaller. Before you know it, your clutter worries will be gone.

Tips & Warnings

• Take one point at a time and strive to make it an ingrained habit.

• Do not give up. Stick with it until you achieve the desired result.