Everything You Need to Know About Decluttering Your Home

Everything You Need to Know About Decluttering Your Home

We’ve all been guilty of holding on to too much stuff before. However, when one thing turns into a thousand unnecessary things that are just lying around without a purpose — soon you won’t be able to function in your home.

As a Murphy Bed retailer, we are all about saving space and maximizing your home's usable square footage. Yet, there is often a number of things you can do, in addition to buying a Murphy Bed, to make your home an oasis of calm and order. So in this post, we want to talk about decluttering.

Decluttering your house is a liberating experience. However, it isn’t an easy task for most people. What’s more, decluttering can be stressful because your first thought is that there’s just so much to do. Don’t let that discourage you. Here is everything you need to know about decluttering your home.

A good start is essential

Make sure you have a game plan. When you’re decluttering, it’s difficult to pick a place to start from. The best advice is just to pick a spot and work from there. However, make sure you’re doing it right. For each item you pick up, ask yourself three questions:

  1. Do I really need this?
  2. Do I really love this?
  3. Would I trade my space and peace for this?

 If the answer is no — chuck it.

Don’t leave them hanging

The essential thing about decluttering is to commit to it fully. That means that once you start, you can’t stop until you’re done. If that sounds intimidating, don’t worry — you can divide your work into a few days or weeks. However, make sure to stick to your schedule.

Don’t take on big tasks

It’s important to finish what you’ve started, because momentum is everything when you're making a big change. If you set a goal for that day — let’s say, decluttering your wardrobe — don’ leave the task half-finished. Still, that doesn’t mean that you should take on huge tasks at once. If something seems too big, it probably is. Remember — divide and conquer.

Don’t let your attention wander

Finish each task before you start another one. It’s easy to get distracted while decluttering. If you let your mind and hands wander, you’ll never get the job done. Therefore, don’t let yourself get distracted.

Furthermore, it’s also important not to jump from section to section. If you’re organizing your office and you run into a family album, don’t drop everything to look it over. You already know you’re going to keep that, so move on with your task and enjoy the album after you’re done.

Memory clutter is the worst clutter

Items such as family albums are amazing tokens, and it’s no wonder we get distracted by them. However, we also tend to keep meaningless stuff around just because they remind us of an event or a person from our past. These items will make the decluttering very hard. It will be difficult to part with them, and you’ll lose time reminiscing. Don’t fall victim to this decluttering trap. Try taking a photo of the item, so that you can look at it in the future, without having to keep it in a box somewhere.

Go vertical

Last, but not least, think about how you can bring things off the floor. This may mean building or buying shelves or displaying treasured items on the wall. In addition, Murphy Beds are a great way to maximize your living space by eliminating intrusive bedroom furniture. Some of our pieces, like this sofa and panel bed, allow you to combine two pieces of furniture into one. In other words, if your home or apartment is cluttered and cramped, a Murphy Bed is one of the easiest ways to declutter and give your bedroom a sleeker, more airy, feeling.

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