Necessity is the mother of invention and nothing teaches us how to be clutter-free better than living in a confined space.
The lessons learned from organising tiny spaces are valuable in larger homes, where mess has a larger canvas and get out of control, making living areas feel much smaller than they really are.
When that happens, you can become needlessly frustrated with your home and complain it’s not big enough anymore. You need to de-clutter to test that belief.
De-cluttering is more than cleaning and tidying. It’s a brutal assessment of your possessions. You must decide whether they have any future use and, if so, where they should be stored.
The first step to creating an uncluttered home is psychological: adopt a mentality in which you continually assess the value of every item that comes into your home and purge constantly.
Like every major operation, de-cluttering needs a plan. Get pen and paper and strategically assess what needs to be done. It will focus your mind and allow you to return to the task over the days and weeks ahead, because you’ll never do everything in one go.
Resist the urge to buy storage boxes until you know exactly what you’re dealing with, as this approach often becomes part of the problem.
Take an inventory of all the items you wish to re-organise, throw out, sell or donate. The first items out the door should be those that are broken, worn out, or unused.
Divide your home into zones to make the task manageable. Finish each zone completely before moving to the next. If you don’t, you’ll never make meaningful progress.
These zones could be for toys, musical instruments and magazines in the living areas, or for clothes in your bedroom wardrobe.
With a plan in hand, set yourself to be ruthless with the space invaders and to every inch of your home properly. For items you wish to keep, decide whether they’re in areas of the house.
Focus clearing the floor space. Not only does this make your home appear larger and tidier, it makes vacuuming so much easier.
Vertical storage is a powerful solution. Utilise dead space on the tops of fitted cupboard and the fridge, and use wire bins and mounting baskets on the walls.
Closet space needs a keen focus. Create separate zones for the wardrobes, linen closet and kitchen pantry. Freeing space in these areas can be truly liberating. You will feel more organised and you’ll minimise your time trying to decide what to wear, or what to cook.
Consider making a ‘closet de-clutter’ a project of its own. The visual effect might be minimal but the benefit will be awesome as you’ll find clothes you had forgotten about.
De-cluttering the living room can create an opportunity to encourage more family time. You can divide it into zones such as the TV area and somewhere to keep some toys for the kids. That way, everyone can enjoy the room at the same time. Consider using rolling boxes to hold the toys.
A current kitchen trend is to hide appliances to alleviate a cluttered appearance from benchtops. Go through the kitchen drawers and cupboards and throw out or donate unused items to create space for appliances you’ve removed from the benches.
Before you know it, you’ll be amazed at how much more room you now have!