Guest Author
A tiny house movement is sweeping the world. People are aware of the need to reduce their carbon footprint and reduce the cost of utility bills. While these new, tiny houses are cute, they make it challenging to store possessions effectively. Keeping a normal-sized house clutter-free is a daily effort for some of us. With this in mind, we offer you some tips for decluttering your small spaces to allow you to live comfortably and calmly in your home.
Choose Wisely
The first step to a small, uncluttered space is to manage your buying habits. Be disciplined about what comes into the home first, and then reduce your need to declutter. When reaching to buy some nick-nack that would be so perfect for that shelf, stop and think for a moment. Hold it in your hand for 60 seconds or so and ask yourself again if this is something that you really need. Sometimes the act of buying is more satisfying than the stresses that come with owning.
Purge Regularly
Decluttering becomes a massive chore when we allow the detritus of our life to collect around us. It is easy to go from homely and cosy to overwhelmed and cramped for space. Therefore, being brutal with what you keep and what you recycle will help keep your mind and home free from the mess.
Set Limits
We allow clutter to pile up because it feels like a big job. However, setting a timer for between 15 and 30 minutes of focused decluttering can be productive and feel manageable all at the same time. Set your phone to ring after the time is up and walk around the room selecting objects to recycle, donate or throw away.
Give Everything a Home
In a small house, storage is scarce, and consequently, everything must have a home where it is clearly meant to be. It might be that you even designate a specific area for transitional objects in your home; a basket or a shelf where objects sit when they are only meant to stay for a short time.
Sectioning of cupboards for different items will bring some order to where things are meant to be and stop them hanging around until they find a home. While we would stop short of labelling the cupboards, the more disciplined you are with this in a small space, the better.
Simplify Your Electronics
Most likely to cause most clutter is your home media and communication devices. It is all those cables and boxes that seem to dominate a room. Hiding the television, music, and speakers with cupboards is one way to deal with a cluttered small space. Hanging the TV like a picture on the wall also helps. Equally, having one spot where phones and other devices are charged is a great move.
However, like with everything in a small space, you might want to limit your ambitions. Owning an extensive home media centre with additional speakers and the like is too much for a small space. Therefore, you may want to invest in one powerful wireless speaker that offers significant value with only a tiny commitment to space.
Declutter like the japanese
Marie Kondo has revolutionised the art of decluttering with her book calling on Japanese methods for tidying your small home. Her ideas have spread across the globe and become something of a craze. She suggests two main techniques for decluttering, which will also change your relationship with objects we covet.
First, she suggests laying hands on everything you own. When you hold the object, does it spark joy within you? If it does, keep it; if it doesn’t, find a way to remove it from your home.
Second, when you are left with only the objects that bring you joy, organise them, so they are visible, accessible, and easy to use. If these items genuinely make you happy, you don’t want to hide them away in cupboards where they are hard to access.
While this might sound a little unrealistic, it does teach us an important lesson. We should respect the belongings we choose to keep, valuing the history and the practical use they offer us. If we don’t feel this way about items in our home, why are we keeping them around?
Small Efforts Grow
All these tips suggest that if you start small, your efforts will begin to show. When you see the results of your work, you will be motivated to do more.
Author Bio
This article was written by Display Sense, who are one of UK’s leading suppliers of storage, organisation and display based products.
