Make It Work
New Year, and a whole slew of resolutions to forget about in the next few weeks. But seriously, the new year is the perfect time to set your sights on goals you want to accomplish, mostly in the vein of improving your day to day life. While many people resolve to eat better, lose weight, exercise more, and save money, you might be looking to expand your space. If 2019 is the year of the upgrade for your home, congratulations! However near or far into the future those plans are there’s one thing you can do in preparation for your reno that will also make the space you have work better for you. That one thing: Decluttering.
Don’t Put Off Today
There’s no better time than the months leading up to a reno to finally get rid of the clutter and keep your house tidier in the process. It’s simply the natural state of things. As we live out life we collect things. And those things often get dropped wherever is convenient. (Admit it. Your dining room table is a wasteland of all junk mail, half eaten snacks, bags and water bottles.) But with that reno right around the corner, you’re going to need to clear the space of everything before construction starts. So follow these steps to pair down what you’ll eventually have to put into storage.
Need Vs. Want
This is a hard conversation to have with oneself. It really is. If you have a habit of keeping things around far past their use you can almost always justify keeping something. You don’t have to be a hoarder to default to “put this somewhere” when cleaning up for a get together. But actually taking the time to go through those closets and junk drawers and sort through the papers on every desk/flat surface in the house is the basis of decluttering. And the question of “Do I really need this” is the best place to start. Yes, you can also Marie Kondo that stuff and hold it close to your heart and search for the joy in it. But brass tax, if it hasn’t been used in the last year or you can’t remember the last time it was used, you don’t need it. Family heirlooms are obviously the exception. But even then, if all those keepsakes do is sit in a box in the basement of Forgotten Land then it might be time to give it a better home.
Organize While You Work
As you go through the process of decluttering, making a space for everything in that keep pile – and we’re talking a truly designated space – is the next step to success. Even having a specific place for the mail is key. That can be a decorative bowl, a wall-mounted organizer with hooks for bags and keys and pockets for the mail, whatever floats your boat. Place it in an area near the door or in the office (a place that makes sense) and use it. Buying dividers for your drawers is a great way to create more order to the chaos that are drawers as the nature of them is constantly shifting.
Keeping Up With The Kondo’s
Having a designated space for your things will help keep your space tidy and free of clutter. Make no mistake, this is a feat in and of itself and it takes 21 days to create a new habit. But putting your things back in their rightful place as you go, on a daily basis, is the biggest key to keeping your home clear of mess. If you’ve got a family, divide areas or chores amongst everyone and hold each other accountable. Make it a new routine to do a sweep right before bed or after dinner. Busy lives means barely enough time to think, so designate Saturday mornings as coffee, cartoons, and clean up time. However you can “Make It Work”.
As you create and live with these new changes, the ideas you have for your renovation may change now that your home has less mess. Even if your plans don’t change from this change, less things to pack away for that reno means an easier start to and arduous process, so Tidy On, Friends.
