“No matter what I do, my home keeps getting cluttered. Help!”
I hear this time and time again from my readers and podcast listeners. They get on a decluttering kick, only to look around a few months later and wonder how the clutter returned. Perhaps you can relate?
Clutter culprits are like unwelcome freeloading roommates who don’t add anything to our life but seemingly refuse to leave. So what can we do?
Here are my best tips for kicking four major clutter culprits to the curb – for good!
Culprit #1 – Clothing
Are you constantly drowning in clothing and can never get ahead of laundry, and yet have “nothing to wear”? On average, we wear 20% of our clothing 80% of the time. But a dangerous combination of fast fashion and constant ad exposure means that we buy far more than we need.
Clothing can be fraught with sentimental meaning or can be aspirational clutter – especially if it’s something we hope to fit into again or represents a previous season of our life. Seven years ago when I worked full-time in an office setting, my closet looked far different than it does now. It took me time to recognize that I didn’t need 30 dresses, but eventually I accepted my season of motherhood and let them go.
So how to we say sayonara to clothing we don’t use or need? The first step is to recognize what we are actually wearing. By using the reverse hanger trick for two weeks, you can easily see what you gravitate towards every day in your closet. You can then take everything else, put it in a bin and set a reminder for 30 days. If you don’t miss anything after the 30 days, you can feel confident in donating the contents.
The other trick I have for calling out unneeded clothing is doing laundry every day. While this may not work for a single person, a daily laundry routine works well for my family of four. I wash and hang one load a day and put yesterday’s clean clothing away. I can see what I like to wear (versus what is gathering cobwebs in my drawers), and I can tell what my boys like to wear which helps me streamline their wardrobe.
Culprit #2 – Paper
If I were to ring your doorbell and come into your home, how many piles of paper would I see? Would you have mail thrown on the entryway table? How about bills scattered on the kitchen counter? Would kids’ schoolwork be hanging out of backpacks? Paper is constantly coming in, and it’s hard to get ahead of the influx.
Paper attracts paper, and clutter attracts clutter. So if your dumping ground for paper is any flat surface you can find, you need to have a system around your stuff.
A successful paper processing system starts with finding a place to catch all the papers that are coming in. Please don’t use your countertops! I use a physical inbox in my kitchen and my husband has one in his home office. Mail, kids’ schoolwork, kids’ artwork – I look at all of it as it comes in, and if it requires action by me (or my husband) it goes into the corresponding inbox. Every evening I take a look at what’s in my inbox so I can actually process it. This may mean paying a bill, putting a date from a school flyer into my calendar, or scanning a story my first grader wrote.
After paper is processed, it has a final home: the shredder, the recycling bin, or possibly “art purgatory“. Art purgatory is where I keep my kids’ artwork and crafts for 3 months to see if they ask for it before I either scan it or pitch it. A few favorites are filed away or are displayed on a cork board in my kids’ room.
Paper can easily get out of control. Make sure you have a collection spot, a specific processing time, and a final destination.
Culprit #3 – Toys
I know many moms who are overwhelmed by the sheer about of kids’ toys in their home. Toys don’t just live in the play room, but have spilled over into kids’ rooms, living rooms, and more. We often feel like we’re living in a toy store instead of our home. Part of this has to do with the amount of stuff coming in. We have to take a look at our shopping habits and create boundaries around gifts as much as possible.
When it comes to the toys already in our home, we have to understand why we are keeping so many. Is it because we “have the space for it“? Is it because it’s “educational” and we feel like we should have it? Is it because we feel guilty letting it go because it was a gift from a family member? By observing what our kids actually play with and using the power of artificial boundaries, we can more easily let go of the excess that is overwhelming us – and our kids.
Culprit #4 – Aspirational Clutter
This last clutter culprit is sneakier than the other three because it’s not as easy to identify. That is because aspirational clutter is anything that isn’t serving you in your current season, exactly as you are. It may represent a version of you from the past, or something that you hope you will do in the future, if only you had the time and energy. Aspirational clutter often sticks with us the longest because letting it go means that we are accepting our current reality. Perhaps our reality is a different body shape that we would want. Or a life where our time is spent taking care of our family members more than pursuing our own hobbies. That is hard. We don’t want to feel like we are “giving up” on ourselves, or our dreams.
But getting rid of aspirational clutter gives us something in return. Freedom to accept who we are and to move confidently forward focusing on what matters to us, instead of feeling bad about who we aren’t anymore. We don’t have to look at jeans that were ten pounds and two kids ago and feel remorse or resentment. We can let them go, and in doing so let go of the emotional burden we were never meant to carry.
Let’s Kick ‘Em to the Curb
Clothing, paper, toys, and aspirational clutter are four clutter culprits that steal our time, energy, focus, and attention. But our health and well-being are worth more than anything that we have ever paid for what we own. We don’t have to welcome these culprits into our homes. Instead, we can curb the influx, recognize our excess, and create systems to manage what we own – so we can kick clutter to the curb.
If you are struggling with any of these clutter culprits, feel free to check out my free resources, or schedule a free 20-minue discovery call to see if my decluttering coaching services can help you!
Simplify. Find out how.
Subscribe to receive the Decluttering Tips and Resources for Overwhelmed Moms weekly newsletter and receive my most popular resource, 50 Questions Minimalists Ask. Make sure to look for an e-mail from info@simplebyemmy.com to confirm your subscription!