Archive for category: Decluttering

Organizing and decluttering possessions is a great way to reduce stress and improve the look of your home, along with many other benefits. But some things are more difficult to remove, such as the box of memorabilia tucked into a closet. Our professional organizers know that sentimental items can be the hardest to part with. We also understand that you don’t have to say goodbye to all of it. Here are suggestions for dealing with sentimental items while decluttering at home.

Why Sentimental Objects are Hard to Part With

A common fear among our clients is that tossing something that stirs up memories will somehow erase those recollections and the attached legacy. But those memories will not disappear when you let go of items that hold sentimental value. You will still remember the past, and those people, even without the memorabilia sitting in that box in the closet.

We’ve also heard people say that keeping their mementos is harmless. And that’s true if it were only one or two. Often, though, there are many small things, and when put together, they take up a lot of space. Your home becomes a storage space and holding onto numerous sentimental items can detract from their specialness.

You Don’t Have to Throw Everything Away

Let’s make that very clear. We are certainly not saying to toss all the memorabilia. Instead, we suggest:

Choose One Item per Event. Let’s say that you have five items from your college graduation in a box. We suggest choosing the one that means the most to you to symbolize the event, rather than keeping all five. This process pairs down the belongings while keeping a sentimental item per event.

Use the Item. Yes! You might be waiting for a special event to use the crystal wine glasses you received years ago from your grandmother. But what better way to honour her and her memory than by using those glasses often?

Donate to Help Others. For those keepsakes that you don’t use, think about whether it might mean more for someone else to use them rather than having them collect dust in your closet. If another person can love something the way you once did, or the way the person who gave it to you did, that can be comforting and special.

Take Photos. Consider taking photos of mementos and printing them to put into a keepsake book. Then, give away the physical objects. This way, you can look at them any time you want to reminisce, and the book takes up considerably less room than all the items.

Letting Go is Empowering

When you let go of excess items, you embrace a minimalist lifestyle. It can feel like a weight is lifted when an excessive number of items no longer surround you at home. Last of all, we want you to remember that the memories associated with the sentimental objects still exist in your heart.

If you’re not ready to give up something, we suggest putting it aside for a year. Then look at the item again and see if you’re ready to let it go at that point.

Our organizers offer support and suggestions for decluttering but never pressure you. If you are finding it difficult to organize the home, reach out to us today for a free consultation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us a lot about caring for our mental health, and the incredible resilience of human beings in a crisis. Some lessons apply specifically to the home, which likely won’t come as a surprise given the amount of time most people spent there during this time. Whether you started a decluttering project during the lockdown or plan to do so soon, here are five takeaways to help organize and simplify life.

1.      Be More Intentional

The pandemic has shed light on how quickly things can change and the importance of making the most of today. This mindset can apply to your decisions about what to buy and bring home, from decor to clothes.

Choosing only to purchase what you need or what brings you happiness can be freeing, and you’ll likely save money by not buying excess material goods. This level of intention can prevent clutter from creeping into the house over time.

2.      Take a Money Mindset

The pandemic left many people without jobs, either permanently or temporarily. This challenging time involved learning how to budget and make do with less.

This attention to finances is one that you can apply while decluttering around the home. As you look around, think about the monetary value of different items. This mindset can help you finally part with items you no longer use but had trouble detaching from. Looking at material things as means to build up your savings or pay down a debt provides great motivation to sell them.

3.      We Can Make Do

During the pandemic, families pared down what they used to spend less. We went out much less, and when we did, the shopping lists were often shorter than pre-pandemic.

The zest for buying unnecessary things fell to the wayside as finances, health, and safety took priority. The lesson here is that we can make do with less and frivolous things can wait. It’s a reminder to think twice before buying something and avoid impulse items that become clutter at home.

4.      Create a Satisfying Life

Take the time to craft a life you love. Surrounding yourself with material things that don’t bring you a deeper happiness only keeps you from that goal. So, now is the time to choose what to have in your home environment and let go of clutter.

5.      Make Better Use of Space

With so much time spent indoors, families learned to use every inch of their house for time together and alone. Several households began renovation projects to improve kitchens, closets, and other spaces.

The lesson here was to make the most of our homes and enjoy living in them. That involves keeping rooms and closets organized moving forward and resisting buying items that only add clutter.

We can help you make the most of your living space. ClutterBGone is a team of professional organizers who love providing people with the tools, suggestions, and support to enjoy a more organized, stress-free home environment.

Whether you are taking down walls, expanding, or changing the home in another way, decluttering before and after the reno can simplify the process and help you get more out of it in the end. These tips from our professional organizers will help you get through it with less stress and more confidence.

Only Keep What is Needed

A great way to declutter is to go through each room and pick out the belongings that you no longer use. If you are unsure whether to keep something or not, consider how long it has been since you used it, where it will go in the remodeled home, and how difficult it is to move.

The time you take to make these decisions about what to keep and part with will help you save time later (and money). After the renovation, the last thing you want to do is have a lot of stuff that isn’t needed.

Maintain Your Focus

If you try to do it all at once, you are likely to become overwhelmed. Instead, choose a room to begin decluttering and then select an area, such as a drawer, to focus on.

Take the drawer, empty it, and pick out only the needed items. Donate, sell, or give to friends and family anything that isn’t necessary. Repeat the process around the room until it is complete.

Before and After the Reno

Clearing away the clutter before the remodel begins makes sense as then you will have less upheaval when the process begins. After the reno, the organizing continues as you unpack and decide where to best place things and what to store where.

To get the most out of your updated home, it often makes sense to add organizational systems. For example, storage units and furniture that doubles as storage are great items to include.

Tackle the Paper and Clothes

If you have piles of paper around your place, now is the time to sort it. Decide what to keep, shred, or toss. Getting rid of unnecessary paper can be a freeing feeling!

Going through your clothes is also something that you’ll want to do. If you find this hard to do, simply letting go of those items that are worn, ripped, stained, or no longer fit is a way to pare down the bedroom closet.

Hire a Professional

You don’t have to do it all alone. Our pre/post home renovation service helps you to declutter and organize with a pro at your side before and after the upgrade.

Our professional organizer customizes the process based on your needs and preferences. That ensures that your reno goals are met within the allotted time frame.

From recommending ways to pare down your belongings to how to increase the utility of the new space, our friendly organizers have effective strategies to help you. We will also suggest ways to prevent clutter from returning, and we move at a comfortable pace for you.

Call us today for a free consultation. We are happy to help you from start to finish as you remodel with decluttering and organizing so you can get the most out of the new space!

There’s a lot on your plate as a homeowner, from paying the bills to maintaining the exterior and interior. To help you keep the inside of the home looking its best, here are the organizing tips that our pros think you’ll find as valuable as they do.

Two-Year Rule

When you look at your clothes closet, do you wonder how it got to be so full? The addition of a shirt or pair of pants here and there can add up over the years, resulting in clutter. Often, people don’t see it getting that way until the closet is packed.

If this scenario sounds familiar to you, here’s a rule to apply. If you haven’t worn a clothing item for two years, let it go. That could mean gifting it to a friend, donating to a local charity, or selling it to get some extra cash. Even if you are still fond of it, you’re not wearing it, so it’s time to take it out of the closet.

Create Space in the Bathroom

Don’t worry, we don’t mean to start knocking down walls to remodel the bathroom. Instead, a more affordable and easier approach can provide better storage for even the smallest bathroom. It can start with adding holsters for your hairdryer and curling iron on the inside of the under-sink door to store them there.

For example, have you considered making use of blank wall space? Our professional organizers suggest hooks to hang towels and accessories like mirrors. Also, corner shelving units provide a way to use the space there, filling them with haircare products and other things you reach for daily.

Reimagine Your Laundry Room

If you’ve always wanted to create a well-organized room for handling and cleaning laundry, now is the time. Keeping it organized makes laundry less of a chore and can also speed it up.

Begin by looking around for what doesn’t belong in the room, such as dog toys and kids’ gadgets (unless it’s shared space). Then, see if you can reduce the number of laundry products used by combining dryer sheets into one package, for example. If there aren’t shelves in the room, it’s a worthwhile investment to add them to store your laundry products and keep them out of reach of children and pets.

Cubby Storage

We’re excited about this one as it’s a great storage solution, even for a small home. Cubby storage units can have a range of purposes, from organizing books to cat supplies.

Being able to customize them to each room is one of the major benefits. Plus, you can rearrange them when you want, how you want, as your kids grow up and their needs change or as your decorating style shifts over time. From a baby changing table to floating box shelves, there are plenty of ways to use cubbies!

Get More Great Ideas

Organizing your home can be fun, believe it or not. When you have a vision and are willing to put in the effort and time to sort through possessions, you can get the organized home interior that you’ve wanted for years.

To make it more enjoyable, get on the right path from day one with a professional organizer. We work with your vision and provide tips like the ones above to help you get more out of your space and clear the clutter. Let’s start the next project together!

There are times in life when we all feel a bit lost and unsure where to go next. What do you do when you want a significant change but cannot determine what to do to move forward? What if you lack the motivation to try as nothing seems right? In these moments, finding the clutter can help you let go of it, which enables you to take positive steps in life.

Clutter is Physical… and Mental

The first definition of clutter that comes to mind for most people is the abundance of things in a confined space, such as the closet or another space at home or work. The disorganization and accumulation of items, some of which you likely no longer use, can feel overwhelming. That is the mental component of physical clutter.

Have you ever looked around a messy room at home and felt your thoughts becoming jumbled too? That is the mental manifestation of the clutter you see, and the disorganized thoughts can be as jarring as the physical mess.

Clutter can also be habits you hold onto that are no longer useful or appropriate in your current station of life. So, taking the time to tackle both the tangible possessions and thoughts that no longer serve you well is the way to a better version of yourself.

From Mental to Physical Clutter

It’s interesting to also look at what came first. Was it the physical abundance of items at home or the overwhelming and disorganized thoughts?

It could start with either one, depending on the situation. Perhaps you were gifted a lot of items when you moved into a new home, for example. You must find somewhere to store them but have limited space. The more you look at the clutter, the more chaotic your thoughts feel, and you may experience stress about what to with the mess. In this scenario, the physical mess can have significant effects on the mind.

Or, perhaps you felt uncertain about your career and felt security in holding onto items, even though they no longer were helpful or even working anymore. The fear you feel can manifest itself in more and more clutter, whether you realize it or not. In this case, the mental clutter leads to a disorganized home or workspace.

Getting the Support to Improve Your Quality of Life

After realizing why clutter is happening, the next step is to use it to encourage change. Believe it or not, those feelings of uncertainty are the inspiration to unclutter.

Start by making decisions that encourage you to move forward. Making one decision leads to another, and so on. The more of them that you make now, the less you must do later after you’ve removed the chaos.

To help you create a more positive environment at home, where you likely spend a lot of time, enlist the help of a friend, professional organizer, or someone else you feel comfortable with during this process. That is how to clear your physical environment and your mind to get past those stagnant moments in life.