10 Tips for Decluttering Your Home

March begins on Friday, marking the coming of spring. And you know what spring brings…spring cleaning. The spring is a great time to get a fresh start and get organized before your family gets busy with summertime activities. Check out these ten tips for organizing your home this spring!

1. Don’t go it alone. Find a friend or team up with a family member to tackle the process of de-cluttering your home. Between the two of you, you’ll be able to maintain perspective about what you need to hold on to and what you should toss.

2. Hold a garage sale. Instead of just tossing everything you don’t need into the trash, ask yourself if anything is of value and whether it would be worth having a garage sale. At the very least, donate everything you don’t need to charity.

3. Use a ratio rule. Use a ratio so that every four items you keep, you throw one away. If you’re really ambitious, lower the ratio to one out of three or even one out of two.

4. Separate treasures from trash. Items that are stored in trash bags in the attic clearly aren’t valuable. Make sure your treasures are proudly displayed in your home. For anything you don’t plan to display, trash.

5. Make your bed daily. This is a simple way to make your room look instantly neater.

6. Plan for paperwork. Paperwork is one of the biggest causes of clutter within homes. It’s easy to let bills and other paperwork pile up on counters. Create a filing system for bills, files and magazines. Use file folder labels to organize items you plan to keep in files and place labels on shelves and other containers.

7. Everything in its place. Make sure you have a place for everything and make a habit of putting things back when you're finished using them.

8. The clothes hanger trick. If you want to see what you really wear during the year, try the clothes hanger trick. Turn all of your spring and summery clothes around so that the hanger faces the wrong direction. Each time you wear an item, turn the hanger to face the right direction. At the end of the season, you’ll have a very clear picture of just what you wear and what you don’t.

9. Organize your receipts and bills. Keep all of your monthly receipts and bills in an accordion file in your desk. At the end of the 12 months, shred all the files. Keeping this accordion file folder on hand will provide you with a fast and easy catch-all for those receipts.

10. Understand the importance behind the de-cluttering. De-cluttering your home is important for opening up physical, emotion and psychological space within your life.