Moving, cleaning, organizing, and unpacking is all very time consuming and stressful, wouldn't you agree? Apart from the 1 percent of people who actually enjoy cleaning, most would agree. The majority of people don't normally enjoy spending endless hours going through the dark corners of the house where we tend to discard unwanted items for future “spring cleaning”, but we must. If we ignored this necessary chore everyone would be well on their way to qualifying for an episode of Hoarders. But let's avoid that apocalypse.
Fortunately, there are a million tips on how to de-clutter correctly, or de-cluttering tips, or successful de-cluttering. You name it, I am sure someone has wrote up steps what do to when de-clutter. And there is no better time to de-clutter than when you are getting ready to pack up and move to West Palm, Florida. However, have a million what to do tips can be overwhelming and there are really several ways to go about de-cluttering. Instead, it is more efficient for both parties just to tell you what NOT to do.
I know retail therapy is enticing but do not go out and buy organizers and storage supplies. First, sort through your home. Set things into appropriate categories such as garbage, recycle, donate, yard sale, and storage for seasonal apparel or gear.
Once sorted, do not stop there. Often people make the mistake of setting aside and your pile for donation ends up sitting in the corner of your garage for months. Follow through. Take the garbage out, take your donation to Goodwill, and plan a yard sale in the near future. Don't wait.
A huge mistake we all fall victim to trying to do it all at once. You just want to get it over with so why not spend all day to finish de-cluttering? Because as hard as you try it would a miracle to be efficient and effective with such a tedious task for 8 hours straight. Pace it out over a couple days.
Do not become discouraged when you realize your home does not look like the one in the magazine. Perfection is not the goal. The goal is for clean, efficient, and a usable space. Don't forget, people actually live in your home.
In other words, take your time and be thorough. Articles, blogs, and people will advise you on ways to go about de-cluttering the mound of junk you've accumulated over the years without giving you a headache however everyone is different. And since everyone is dealing with different tasks it is not easy to address the general public on how to de-clutter. One person's trouble are may be the closet as another's may be the garage or attic. So as long as you avoid these four commonly made mistakes you are going to do just fine. Take a breath, and take the challenging task one piece of junk at a time. There is no need to overwhelm yourself with several hours of this tedious chore in one day. As we are often told, slow and steady wins the race.