The Top 10 Items to Declutter in Your Home
Author: Amy Revell
Do you know the 10 most common items a professional organiser declutters from clients' homes? Find out here
When I first began my business, Simply Organised, I was surprised at how I seemed to be helping people declutter the same kinds of things in every home. Each home is unique, and the exact items we declutter and storage solutions we create are tailored to each family, but we often deal with the same categories. Read on to see if some of these areas might need to be decluttered in your home.
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1. Kitchen appliances
Do you own a pie maker or a doughnut maker? A juicer… or two?
Kitchen appliances seem great when they’re on the shelf or in the box. But life gets busy and unless we are in the habit of integrating the use of a certain appliance into our schedule, we forget we have it, or decide it’s too much work to get it out, use it, clean it, then pack it back away.
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2. Jackets and coats
A quality jacket can be a bit of an investment, and unfortunately they do go out of fashion (usually long before they’re showing signs of wear). My experience is that instead of decluttering their wardrobe and replacing an out-of-fashion coat, people usually buy a new one and keep the old one at the back of their wardrobe, because technically, ‘there’s nothing wrong with it’.
It’s unlikely you’ll ever wear your old jacket again… or the one from last decade, so once you purchase a new jacket, it’s time to donate your old one to a new home.
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3. Study notes
Whether you’ve tackled a university degree, a short course or high school essays, in 99 percent of cases, you don’t need to keep your notes past graduation.
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4. Kids’ clothes
In old nappy boxes all around the world are clothes that our children have outgrown but we’re hanging onto anyway.
Clients often tell me ‘they’re too good to give away’, but honestly they don’t have the time to sell the items online, so they’ve been in boxes for years. If this is you, pop everything in the car and donate it, so other children can wear the clothes and you can regain space in your home.
5. Mugs
I’ve been to homes that have 50-plus mugs in the kitchen and never been to a home that didn’t need to declutter at least some coffee mugs.
A good measure of how many you need is how many you’d use in any one day (pick your most hospitable day when you have guests over for coffee) and keep just that many.
6. Packaging
Brands such as Apple have created a branding phenomenon around packaging that is so strong, almost every home I enter has old empty iPhone, iPad or Mac boxes. Why? Clients are never really sure why they kept them, but I think it’s because we believe it says something about us… about our social standing, financial standing and it makes us feel like we belong.
Strong emotions for a white, empty box…
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7. Broken toys
Toys aren’t designed to last forever, so when you lose pieces or a toy breaks, don’t be afraid to throw it away. I often help my clients throw away toys, puzzles or games with missing pieces or outside toys that are broken from sun damage.
8. Out-of-date products
Whether it’s in the pantry, freezer, bathroom or laundry, every home has expired products that need to be disposed of. It’s often not until we do a thorough declutter that my clients realise just how much waste there is in this area.
9. Craft supplies
Does your ideal self have time each Sunday afternoon for being creative? Do you have craft supplies for multiple different hobbies that you never really have time for? There are two main reasons my clients keep their unused craft supplies.
First, they feel guilty about donating or throwing away supplies that they’ve spent hard- earned money on, and secondly they feel like giving them away is like admitting defeat that they’ll never be that crafty person they dream of. I suggest giving away anything that you no longer love and make time to get creative with the crafts you enjoy.
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10. Books
I was bought up to believe that you should never throw away a book; many of my clients were. But with limited space in our homes, I help my clients declutter their bookshelves by donating any tomes they would not read again or that they could borrow from their local library.
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