Whether you are in the process of preparing for a house move or just desire more space at home, having a good decluttering session is a great way to refresh and revive your home. Out with the old and in with the new is all very rewarding, but for some people it can be tricky to know where to start.

Box labelled Fragile If the piles of papers, bulging cupboards and jam packed drawers are just too much for you to think about, here are some simple steps you can start to take to work towards a less cluttered lifestyle.

  • Little and often: Don’t try and tackle the whole house in one day. You’ll only burn yourself out if you do. Start with one problem area, such as a drawer, and do fifteen minutes a day until it is done.

 

  • Recycle magazines: Magazines are expensive, which is maybe the reason you’ve got three years of Cosmo or Top Gear hoarded away in the loft. But are you really going to read them again? Send them to the recycling or give them to your local medical practice for patients to read.

 

  • Clothes are your worst enemy: How many of us seem to have no storage space left for clothes, yet very little that we actually wear? Keeping clothes so we can ‘slim into them’ is a bad idea. No doubt they’ll be horribly dated by the time they fit anyway, if they ever do, so donate, sell or bin anything that is not your current wardrobe.

 

  • Pass on heirlooms: The guilt that goes with ditching a family heirloom is great. Instead of wasting cupboard space storing it, why not see if someone else in the family would like it? Alternatively, gather together all those artefacts that have been passed down to you and put them into self storage until you decide what you want to do with them.

 

  • Don’t just rearrange the clutter: It can be tempting to go out and buy some new shelves and simply find a better, more organised way of storing all the things you have. This might be effective in the short term, but in the long run you are not solving anything, so be ruthless and get rid of the things you don’t need.

 

  • Be pedantic about paperwork: In a chaotic home, the office desk is often the place that suffers the most from clutter. Whether it’s letter your need to act upon, bills you need to file or documents you need to keep long term, what can start out as some neat piles can often disintegrate into chaos at a moment’s notice. Sort out a proper filing system for the things you need to keep, and see what papers you can scan and store digitally to free up a lot of space.

 

Whatever your decluttering exercise turns up, remember you don’t always need to get rid of everything. If you can’t store it at home and can’t bear to part with it, self-storage can provide the extra space you need to keep your little treasures safe. Some self storage companies even provide collection and delivery services for your stuff so you don’t have to worr