Out with the Old, In with the New: 6 Strategies for Maximum Decluttering Success

A new year is upon us and what better time to talk about decluttering your home than now?

Throwing out old clutter is not a chore reserved for spring only. A new year brings with it hope and the opportunity for fresh beginnings. What some of us often forget, though, is that these things are hard to achieve if we are still rooted in the past, and the one link to that past happens to be our possessions, both household and personal.

In essence, what clutter does is serve as a cause of chaos and stress both in our homes and in the mind, and by extension, our lives.

Thus, shedding the clutter that has been piling up in your home frees up not just the physical space, but also the mental clutter. It results in a clean, tidy and refreshing environment. An inviting space that allows you to relax and recharge, as opposed to one that is stressful and overwhelming.

As we mark the start of a new year, this is an ideal time to take some time to create space in our homes for something new to emerge. The caveat here is that creating space does not necessarily imply filling up that space with new things. The whole point is to just…open it up.

There are several techniques to go about decluttering your home, the most popular of which we have discussed below.

The Minimalist Approach

The concept of minimalism was the brainchild of a Joshua Fields Millburn who stumbled upon it by chance. Together with Ryan Nicodemus, the pair who own the popular blog The Minimalists, devised this technique which seeks to gamify the decluttering experience.

It recommends that the number of items you declutter should correspond with the respective day of the month. And here is what this means…

On Day One of the month, you should purge one item from your home, two things on Day Two, three on Day Three, and so on. If you play right to the end of the month, assuming it is a 31-day month, you will have gotten rid of a staggering 476 items.

Needless to say this can be an extremely effective way rid your home of old stuff, although it can prove overwhelming the deeper into the month you go. It’s just like Tetris, it gets harder with each passing level.

The KonMari Approach

Also known as the Marie Kondo approach, this decluttering technique was made popular by Marie Kondo who spent hours as a child looking for ways to reduce clutter and create new storage systems in her home in Japan.

Today, the self-confessed neat freak has refined the technique to help declutter your home for good. The underlying principle is that instead of choosing the things you want to purge, you choose what to keep and throw out everything else.

To get started, gather every item you own, bunching the things into respective categories, and place them into a big pile.

If it’s clothing, for example, place everything on the bed, and then take turns to either feel, hold or wear each one to get a good sense of how a particular item makes you feel. A good way to determine this is to ask yourself, ‘Does this [item] arouse joy in my heart?’

Go with the first sensation that comes to you, rather than pondering about it.

The KonMari approach is a tried-and-true method of decluttering, and the good thing about it is it makes it easy to get rid of clutter in specific categories across multiple areas of your home at the same time.

But it can be time-consuming as it involves combing through the entire house, sorting through each individual item. If you can spare a few days, however, this strategy has the potential to completely restore order in your home.

The 12-12-12 Approach

The 12-12-12 decluttering strategy was devised by Joshua Becker. He notes that he would turn this challenge into a competition with his wife, and it would be great to involve the kids as well.

This 12-12-12 approach involves finding a dozen items to donate, a dozen to throw away and another dozen that need to be returned to their appropriate location.

Done every day, you will soon find your home conveniently decluttered.

The Closet Hanger Approach

As the name suggests, the closet hanger decluttering strategy revolves around the wardrobe and is perfect for those who need to declutter this sensitive area of their home. It is attributed to the famous clutter organizer Peter Walsh, although credit goes to Oprah Winfrey for helping bring it to the public’s attention.

The closet hanger technique is simple in its execution. It starts by hanging everything in your closet with the hangers facing the opposite direction. Each time you don an outfit, put it back facing the right way.

Following the expiry of a set timeframe (Walsh proposes 6 months, but feel free to determine your own cut off) you will be able to easily tell which items you haven’t touched at all.

Then ask yourself whether you really need to keep stuff you haven’t worn for half an year, or probably a longer period.

The closet hanger technique can be extended to outside of clothing, but this will need you to devise a method to identify which items are used.

The glaring downside with this approach is that we often have some useful items that are either seasonal or not used on a frequent basis therefore making it impractical. Plus, it can take an awfully long time to determine what needs to get tossed out and what to keep.

The Five Minutes Approach

This technique is courtesy of the Zen Habits blog, a website that covers different aspects of personal development. It was only apt to tackle the topic of home decluttering seeing as how it has an influence on our emotional wellbeing.

Leo Babauta emphasizes the importance of taking baby steps, also noting the importance of celebrating those small steps once you have taken them.

The five minutes approach involves setting aside five minutes of your time each day to declutter, whether it be picking one shelf and ridding it of all non-essentials, setting aside a special place for your paperwork rather than spreading them all over the place, gathering five items and identifying a place for them, just to cite a few of his own examples.

Five minutes doesn’t seem like enough time to declutter much, you would agree, but that’s the whole point of this technique: to get just a little decluttering done in what is a hectic modern schedule, and give yourself a pat on the back when you check the task off your list.

This sense of accomplishment, however small, is bound to encourage you to do another five minutes. And then another. By the time you realize it, an hour has elapsed while you are chucking out your junk and arranging what is left for maximum efficiency.

But don’t have this end goal in mind. Just take it one step at a time and appreciate your little efforts.