Decluttering is exhausting.

Physically you’re hauling and moving and cleaning and re-organizing and mentally you’re making decisions about what you want to keep and what you don’t. You think about all the possible instances an item could be used for and in a lot of people’s cases you deem it worth saving even though you and I both know you’re never going to use that ugly vase your aunt gave you ever again. Well- you could repurpose it using my terra cotta DIY- bad example. But you get the idea. We hang on to so much stuff and the reality is: you can’t take it with you.

I’m grateful to live in a small house where we don’t have that much storage. This means, if we don’t use it, it goes. This helps keep my house cleaner, more manageable and less cluttered! Plus we spend way less money on frivolous purchases that we wouldn’t actually use past the honeymoon phase.

Recently I helped Dustin’s Nanny clean out her home in preparation for a move. As I had full reign over a few categories that we were sorting through I figured out a great system that helped me declutter my own home the next week and may just help you too!

1. Set up a trash box and a donate (or sell) box.

Some things just aren’t worth the trip to the Salvation Army.

2. Choose one category to sort through.

Now I am a pretty organized and focused person. Give me a task and I’ll do it and then move onto the next one, I like to check boxes. But I realize that’s not the case for everyone. If you like to go between tasks to stay on track, make a pile of a few different categories that you can go back and forth between or choose one room to declutter and just focus on that room and bounce around within it.

3. Clear & clean everything out.

Remove every item from the space you’re clearing out and then clean it so you have a fresh space to put your items back into.

4. Trash anything that is absolutely trash.

Old cups, receipts, broken items- trash them, you’re not going to fix them. Unless it’s like your great-grandmother’s engagement ring, then hold onto that and take it to a jeweler. But anything that’s not of deep sentimental value that is broken, trash it.

5. Decide

Here’s where the hard part comes in. If you are someone who is overly sentimental, be real with yourself, I suggest having an outside party who will help you make decisions right now. I know it can feel sad to get rid of stuff, but I promise that you’ll feel a weight lifted off your shoulder when you’re actually using all of the things you own and they’re not just buried below a pile of stuff in a closet somewhere, never to be used. How do I decide? SIMPLE.

S- Sentimental?

Will this item bring me and my family joy and bring up memories that we cannot get without this item? Think photos, home movies, family jewelry. (If you want to take it a step further digitize your photos and home movies to take up less space. But I do love to hold photos so if you want to keep them, put them in photo albums or organize them in a box where you can easily access and go through them. Consider even moving them into a living space where they’ll be looked at more often.) If you find that you’re deciding that most of the items you’re saving are sentimental I’d challenge you to really evaluate if they’re actually sentimental or not. For instance Nanny had a bunch of dresses that she had made when she was younger that she wanted to keep. After we thought about it and discussed it she decided to just keep 2-3 of her favorites and donate the rest. If you come across this situation keep what you absolutely love and give the rest away. If it’s a valuable item set it in a pile to try and sell it or see if another family member would like it.

I- Illogical?

Is it illogical to keep this item? For instance, is it a VCR player and you don’t have any VCR’s or a TV you could hook it up to? That’s illogical to keep. Donate it. A set of encyclopedias? That’s what Google is for- donate it. You get the idea.

M- Movable?

If I was moving into a smaller space and downsizing, would I take this with me? Is it absolutely necessary for my life? If the answer is no and it’s not broken, donate it.

P- Practical?

Is this something I use on a daily basis? Do I have a more practical version of it that I use more often and I’m just holding onto this in case my other one fails? If you’re not using it regularly and it’s not broken, donate it.

L- Lost?

Is this item in the wrong place in my home? If it is and you haven’t used it or thought about where it was at in the last year and it’s not making your life easier in some way and it’s not broken, donate it.

E- Enabling?

Is it enabling bad habits? I know this is a tough one but if you have a collection and it’s just growing and growing and growing to the point that your family is complaining about having to clean your house out when you’re dead and gone, you should probably get rid of it. Any item that is enabling a bad habit of clutter, over-collecting or hoarding should go. Your family doesn’t want your collection of inspirational signs that aren’t even hanging up. Get rid of them.

Okay so once you’ve gone through this list and you’ve run an item through all of the boxes, if you still don’t know what to do with it set it to the side and decide when you’re done with the rest of the items. If you’re not still thinking about it and it’s something you really aren’t super attached to, get rid of it. Everything is not actually worth a penny.

6. Reorganize

Congrats! Now it’s time to put it all back. You’ll want to think through how you want items in a space before you replace them. Was the old system working for you or did it make it more difficult to get to your items? Are your items in the most ideal space- for instance do you have cleaning supplies in a bedroom closet? Would they better serve you in a kitchen or hall closet? Move them. When putting back your items you may want to invest in tiered shelving, stackable boxes or any containers that would keep your items in sub-categories that are easy to access, easy to identify and that will make what you are keeping useable.

I hope this helped you declutter! Take one room at a time or one closet/sub-section of a room at the time as to not make a huge mess and overwhelm yourself. I try and do a refresh every few months just to make sure I haven’t held on to things that are unnecessarily taking up space. I feel so much better when I know I’m not wasting my resources and I hope you feel better too!

xoxo - Ry