Renting a Northern Colorado apartment often leaves you with a limited amount of both living and storage spaces. With smaller spaces, come larger opportunities for stuff to accumulate. If you are feeling overwhelmed with the items that have piled up, here are ten tips to help you declutter your apartment and proactive measures to help you avoid the mess in the future.
Decluttering can be overwhelming and it can also be frustrating. To help you avoid the stress and anger that often comes with cleaning out your house, make sure that you work in small sections. Taking on one room or one area (such as a drawer, closet, cabinet) at a time will help you to stay on track and stay productive.
People often attempt to declutter their entire house in one single day. You will quickly find that this strategy does not work. Rather than scheduling one day to clean out the whole house, set aside 1-2 hours every day or every other day. You will be more efficient by taking it on in small doses than to attempt to organize an entire apartment between the time you wake up and the time you go to bed.
A large amount of the clutter in a home comes from things we don’t need, but hold on to “just in case.” Storage rooms and closets quickly get filled up with seasonal items and over-filled with items we really should just get rid of. While there may be some things worth holding on to, such as baby clothes, camping gear, or holiday decorations, other things are worth getting rid of. Take some time to sift through what you have and ask yourself if those items are truly needed or wanted.
One of the most effective ways to help you declutter and to help you avoid re-clutter is to change the way you think about the items you have. Marie Kondo’s KonMari Method has been a revolutionary approach used by people across the world to tidy up homes, but more importantly to help people adopt a new outlook on possessions. Her method encourages people to ask themselves if an item sparks joy in their life. If it does not, then it is an item that should be discarded.
As you’re decluttering, you’ll likely find that distractions quickly come up and divert your attention from the task at hand. Do your best to make sure that every task is done completely before moving on to something new. Don’t tell yourself that you’ll finish that later, because you probably won’t. Instead, choose to finish it now.
Clutter happens when there isn’t enough room for stuff or when there isn’t enough organization. To help you keep clutter at bay, take some time to set up better storage solutions. Making sure that everything has a place will help you decide where things go and control how much stuff you have.
Start by organizing what you already have and make the most of storage bins or containers that you already own. Keep in mind that renting a Northern Colorado apartment does not leave you with too much room to work with so try to avoid overwhelming the space or yourself. Going out and buying a bunch of storage supplies before you’ve sorted through what you want to keep or get rid of could create a bigger mess than you’re ready for.
As you work on decluttering your apartment, you’ll probably find that you have a number of duplicated or expired items. This is especially true for cleaning supplies, personal hygiene products, medicines, and kitchen items. Take inventory of what you have, tossing out what you don’t need, consolidating what you have two of, and putting remaining items in a designated place.
After you’ve gone through and gotten rid of the things you were easily able to let go off, take some time to take a second look at the remaining items. You will likely find that there is even more that you don’t need or could do without.
When you’re decluttering there are plenty of things that you should not do, but one of the biggest mistakes you can make is telling yourself “that’s good enough.” Good enough is a good excuse to stop working. Keep going and push through good enough until you’ve reached a point where you reach the success you started out to achieve.
Clutter will naturally begin to accumulate again unless you have a plan in place to keep it from happening. Setting limits for items with available storage space or creating a weekly organization schedule are great ways to keep things from piling back up. You can also avoid clutter by putting more thought into any new purchases and limit the amount of unnecessary items you bring into the home.
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