Decluttering Step #3: Gather your supplies

3 February 2014

This is the third in a blog series I’m writing on Mondays that will take you step by step through the decluttering process. Each Monday for the next few weeks, I’ll offer a new step. So far, we’ve covered Step #1, Create your vision and Step #2: Choose your space. Today’s step is the last preparatory step before actually getting started decluttering.

You’ve created your vision for your decluttered home. You’ve decided what small space to start with. Now it’s time to gather up your supplies. And, no, I’m not talking about the storage and organizational solutions you’ll eventually organize your space with. I’m talking about a few ordinary boxes and bags.

For the decluttering process, the supplies you need are very simple:

5 boxes
a supply of large trash and/or recycling bags
a timer

If you want to get a little fancy and you know you’re going to be doing a lot of decluttering, you might buy a pop up lawn and leaf bag holder to keep your trash/recycling bags open and easy to use. (I also use them for filling up donation bags.)

(Notice that none of the supplies including organizing solutions. Wait until after the decluttering process to purchase those!)

Mark the boxes with the following categories. You can use Post-It® Notes or just write on them with a marker.

Keep
Donate
Recycle
Relocate to Another Room
Other (for items that need to be shredded, mended, or returned to their owner, depending on the kind of space you’re decluttering)

The Relocate to Another Room box is vital. How many times have you walked to another room when you were decluttering in order to return an item to its proper home ? Did you then get distracted by items in that room and go off track? Use the Relocate to Another Room box to keep yourself physically in the space you’re working on. Simply put any item that belongs elsewhere in the house into this box, then budget time at the end of the session to put that stuff away.

The timer is also really valuable. Timers keep you focused, get you past that overwhelmed feeling, and allow you to keep track of time so you don’t end the session suddenly, leaving a big mess behind.

This third step was the last prep step. Next week we’ll talk about the decluttering process.

Tagged with: declutter, decluttering, declutter your home series