As we all know, marketing your house starts with a serious decluttering session. The trouble is, it’s hard work and most of us procrastinate because once the process is started, you’re locked in and you have to see it through to the bitter, dusty end.
Maybe there is an alternative! You can use the declutter in five-minute method to make the process less painful. It might take longer, but it’s better than putting it off each week – you’ll have to do it eventually if you’re moving.
Here are five tips for five-minute decluttering instalments.
Find a spot for paperwork
This can be a fancy box, or you could clear out a drawer and put all your warranties, letters from school, manuals, flyers, menus and so on in there. This has to be better than the arm of your sofa or the kitchen counter, right?
Clear a counter
Clutter needs flat spaces to accumulate on, so it’s the flat areas you look at first. Have a look at your kitchen counter to see what can be moved, stored, given away or recycled. You might only use that coffee grinder once a week, so why’s it always in the way? Find a space in the under-counter cupboard instead. If your kids are now using proper glasses, why’s there still a stack of old sippy cups in the corner?
Start with one shelf
It could be one of your many bookshelves, your second-from-the-bottom bathroom shelf or that shelf under the stairs. Just take everything off it, give it a quick wipe-over and then put back everything that’s still used and that needs to be there. Everything else can go.
Find five homes for five things
If you still use these things, but they’re always just…there, then they need to have their own places. That coffee grinder is a good example. Other good examples are hair straighteners, phone chargers and so forth. You use them at least once a week, but they just get left around to get in the way in-between uses.
Thin out your wardrobe
When you put clean laundry into your drawers and wardrobe, take five minutes to look for items that you don’t wear anymore. If they’re seasonal, then leave them, but if it’s more the case that they no longer fit or you don’t like them anymore, then they’d serve more purpose at the charity shop.
