Clutter is overwhelming—and many people would agree. In America alone, more than half of the population gets overwhelmed when seeing clutter in their household.
Even if decluttering is as simple as donating used clothes to charitable organizations or finding ways to sell your DVDs online, most people let clutter build up because they don’t know what to do with all the stuff they have. Clutter isn’t only bad for the wallet—it’s also bad for your mind.
This post will help you toss out, gift, or donate things that you don’t need anymore but still take up significant space in your life. Through this, you can get back to enjoying all the things you love by pushing yourself to make the tough call to start trimming down your home’s physical clutter. It doesn’t matter if you really want to trim down or not, or if you’ve only been forced to do so because you have to move to a new place. Whatever your reason is, this post has your back.
Start by looking at some tips below on decluttering your home:
- Perform Small But Focused Decluttering
Don’t try to declutter your entire home within a day or organize everything on a weekend because it won’t work. Stuff takes some time to let go of, similar to how it took time for you to own them.
You need a prolonged period to declutter, clean, and organize your home. And you can do it successfully through careful planning. A plan will enable you to target specific areas you can work on as you start.
- Sort Things By Utility, Then By Sentimental Value
One of the problems when planning how to declutter your house is getting too attached to your belongings. These things might represent your hard work and all the sweat you’ve poured into making the money needed to buy them, have a special meaning in your life, or have been with you for a long time already. While there’s nothing wrong with getting attached to your belongings, try your best to separate yourself from that feeling if your goal is to declutter or downsize.
What you can do is to identify the items you can keep and those that you can toss, gift, or donate. Look at your things and think about what’s unique in each of them. Also, think about what each item can do.
After looking at the uniqueness and how each item functions, pick those that you believe can add more value to your everyday life. Yes, it’s easy for items like electronics, tools, and appliances. But things can be a bit more complicated when it comes to a box of photos or other things that have sentimental value to you.
Do you have to overlook sentimental value? Of course not, it’s still important. However, it’s essential not to let yourself get bogged down in how a specific item makes you feel versus how much of your home’s space it takes up, and what it can do for you.
- Resell Some Items Online
After identifying which items can still add value to your everyday life and which are those you don’t find useful anymore, the next step would be to decide on what to do with them.
As already mentioned above, there are things you can toss away, donate, or send as a gift. However, there are also things that you can resell and earn money from as you work on decluttering your home.
Today, getting rid of used things while earning extra money has become simple enough, thanks to the internet. You can now sell your stuff through online auctions and sale websites instead of letting them increase the clutter in your home without being useful to you anymore.
Examples of items you can put up for sale online include the following:
- Movie DVDs
What’s the purpose of keeping movie DVDs when you’re the type of person who only watches a film once? Unless you’d love to go back to the action or drama of the movie multiple times before finally deciding to give up on it, it would be best to sell it online for extra bucks through websites like Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, eBay, and Amazon.
- Textbooks
Books can be expensive, especially those that you used while you were in college. That said, some people keep them despite not using them anymore. However, is that the best thing to do? You have the option of reselling them online and getting back the money you paid for them.
Similar to movie DVDs, you can sell textbooks through eBay, Amazon, Craigslist, or the Facebook Marketplace.
- Craft Supplies
It’s normal to have a hard time getting rid of your craft supplies because of the project possibilities you can’t stop imagining about in the future. Another factor that prevents people from sending their crafts away is that they believe no want will want their creations anyway.
However, if you have craft supplies that you haven’t used for more than a year, the best course of action is to sell them online.
You can quickly sell your craft supplies in online marketplaces like Etsy.
- Send Some Items As A Gift To A Friend Or A Family Member
Aside from selling online, another way to get rid of unused things at home is to send them as a gift to a friend or a family member. It’s a way of bringing a specific item back to life while making someone who needs it or has an interest in using it feel happy.
Some of these items include the following:
- Musical Instruments You Don’t Play Anymore
Did you take up guitar or flute lessons before but have since decided it isn’t for you? If that’s the case, then send the instruments as a gift instead of letting them rot at home. The musical instrument might get a new lease on life with someone who actually needs it and can play it every day.
- Disposable Cameras
Disposable cameras are excellent tools if you have plans to go on an adventure, especially with underwater versions now getting offered in the market. However, since they’re meant for single use, they can easily add to the clutter in your house. It’s best to toss them away, or if you still have unused units, hand them out to your friends and family and let them enjoy the pictures that will come out of it.
- Donate Some Items To Charitable Organizations
Another way to get rid of unused things and lessen home clutter is to donate some of your unused items. It’s easy to find a charitable organization out there that would be willing and happy to accept your donations.
The act of donating some of your things won’t only benefit you but other people as well, especially those who are in need.
Some of the items that you can donate are the following:
- Cords And Chargers Of Electronic Devices
Do you have a lot of cords and chargers at home? It’s time to gather them up and decide which ones are still of use. The stray or frayed ones? Toss them away.
However, the older electronic cords and chargers will be better off getting donated to a charitable organization. You’ll be surprised at how many people would want to get a hold of them.
- Clothes You’re Not Going To Wear Anymore
Many people have too many clothes, but only use a few of them. If that’s the case, a common suggestion you’ll hear is to get more space for your closet. However, is that really what you need? You could find a better solution.
The truth is you only need fewer belongings, and in the case of clothes, only those you wear regularly are worth keeping.
The best thing to do is to organize a closet purge every year and take out everything, then identify and return the ones you love back. Those items you wouldn’t want to wear anymore you can donate to charities as long as they’re still in good shape.
- Recycle Or Convert Some Items Into Decoratives
While there are items you can sell, send as a gift, or donate, others are better off getting converted as decorations that can beautify your home.
Your creativity is the limit. As long as you’ll make your imagination work, it’s easy to find ways on how you can turn an unused item into a useful one.
Here are examples of things you can either recycle or convert into something more useful:
- Plastic Garment Bags From The Clothes You Bought
When you buy new clothes, be it online or the mall, they come with plastic garment bags that protect them from getting damaged as you bring them home.
Of course, you wouldn’t include the plastic bags once you start putting your new clothes in the closet. That said, it’s best to get rid of them or, better yet, recycle them to become a trash can liner by tying a knot in their bottoms.
- Plastic Cups
Sporting events, fast-food restaurants, networking events, and parties use plastic cups—and it’s the reason why they quickly pile up.
If you’re fond of hosting amazing parties, plastic cups have undoubtedly taken over your cabinets at home.
No matter how memorable the event is, keeping plastic cups is far from ideal. What you can do is to activate your creativity and turn them into storage in the children’s playroom, under the sink, craft room, or even the garage.
The rest of them you can recycle and use for other purposes.
- Old Maps
Whether you collected maps because of your love for adventure or you did it so you could have additional materials for your child’s home education, old maps are now a thing of the past. Nowadays, you have Global Positioning Systems that can provide more accurate geographical detail. That said, your old maps can instead serve the purpose of being mounted as wall art at home.
Final Thoughts
The things mentioned above are only some of the many ways to declutter your home. After getting rid of unused stuff, your next assignment would be to clean up what’s left. You can buy tools to help you organize what you have.
Always remember to only purchase things that can improve the clutter condition of your house going forward.
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