What’s The Best Way To Purge Your Home?
If the idea of purging your home brings you out in hives or you feel nauseous then you are not alone. Many people are scared and unsure how to purge their homes and that’s OK. It’s what I’m here to help you with.
The best way to purge your home is to have a plan and steps in that plan which you follow and this will make the whole process less upsetting and actually manageable.
Let’s look at the best ways to purge your home and how you can re-evaluate how you came to have so much stuff that you are better able to manage in the future.
It can be a daunting prospect of going through everything you own and making a decision as to whether to keep it or to do something else with it, like throwing it away or even selling it to make some money.
With these few steps, you can turn your cluttered home into something that is functioning and beautiful.
Making Your Declutter Plan
It’s important that you don’t just jump in throwing things out, having a plan about what needs doing and where you are going to start is just part of the plan.
You also need to decide what needs to happen to the items that you pick up, and where they need to go.
If you are keeping them, where are you putting them?
What about selling items are you creating a new area for setting up a section in your home where you are going to picture items and put them up for sale?
How are you going to get items out of your home that just needs to go into the trash? Are you going to hire a skip or get some other help for getting the items to the tip?
You need to set deadlines too, you don’t want to push yourself too hard as purging items is tough on our mental health but you don’t want it to continue, so by setting deadlines you are giving yourself a time scale to finish a project.
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Resources To Help You Purge
When it comes to purging your home you might need a few supplies to help make this as easy as possible.
Separate And Start Sorting Items In Your Home
Now we have a plan of what needs doing, we have a time frame to work to and we know where things are going that we aren’t keeping, whether it’s selling them or trashing them we have a place to put them.
This is the hard part, it’s going to be emotional but the task needs to be completed. Set a timer for 15 minutes at a time and start.
You don’t need to spend hours on a project if you don’t want to, slow and steady wins the race.
As you start to see what you are keeping, putting these items into categories is going to help you to see what you have and how you are going to continue to keep these items so they have a place they can call home.
Tackle One Room At A Time
Don’t think you are going to get your whole home purged in one day, it took more than a day to collect all this stuff, it’s going to take more than a day to go through everything and get rid of the things that aren’t needed.
But also, you don’t want to be doing little bits in all rooms of your home as you will never really see the progress you are making.
As you make progress you have to keep the areas you have decluttered clutter-free, this is how it works long-term. You take pride in that space you see the beauty in that space and you aim to keep it like that, don’t let stuff come into your home and fill up the spaces you are purging.
Sell, Donate And Trash Before Moving On
It can be liberating to get a space clear of clutter when you are purging, it can also be quite addictive but don’t finish one room and move on to the next without addressing the items that need to be sold, donated, or sent to the dump.
You need to start tackling these items first, you want them out of your home, especially the items that are going to the dump and any items for the charity shops that are nearby.
For the items, you want to sell, get them listed, and start getting those out of your home too. If something doesn’t sell within a short space of time, you have to make the decision as to what happens with it.
You could try these different options:
- Reduce the price
- Take the item to the dump
- Give the item to a charity
But once you have tried the price reduction and it hasn’t worked you have to either take it to a charity shop or to the dump.
Habit Training And Breaking Old Habits
You have to look at what you have done in the past to end up with so much stuff. You have to change the way you think about the items you bring into your home.
Creating rules for what new things can come in is a great idea, if you bring something new into your home you have to let go of something that is already there.
Having these rules in your home will make you think twice about buying new stuff if you can’t decide what needs to go.
You have to work hard to find those habits that caused you to buy stuff and break those habits.
Spending on credit is so easy, how about using only cash, that way you are limiting yourself to how much you can buy.
Another option is to give yourself 24 hours before you can make a purchasing decision.
All these ideas work, it’s about picking the one that is going to work for you, you might need to change it down the road but that’s OK, it’s not set in stone.
More Resources To Help You Purge Your Home
The more help you can get when purging is important, here are some more articles that will help you.
Those ideas are very helpful tips for purging! Thank you for sharing at the #HomeMattersParty.
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