If your home says a lot about you (as it certainly does) is it screaming, messy, disorganized, down at heel and mis-matched, or cool, calm and collected? Spring is the perfect opportunity to take a look at the way you live, warts and all, and make some improvements. Believe it or not, changing your home, will also change the way you feel for the better.
Are you a serial clutterer?
If you have a clutter problem, always ask yourself three questions before bringing a new item into your home. Will this make a positive difference to my life? Have I got room for it? Am I prepared to let go of something to make room for it? All items that have found their way into your home should have a place to live. If they haven’t, find suitable storage for them (or let them go).
Getting started
Start with an A4 pad and write the name of each room at the top of a new sheet. Walk around your home and mark down all the areas that need to be cleared our and detoxed. It might be an entire room, or just a cupboard or drawer. This becomes your ‘to do’ list.
Instead of throwing yourself into detoxing the entire space at once – and running out of time and energy – start small. Make a detox plan by allocating enough time to tackle each section of your home and marking it into your diary.
Spring Clean
It is hard to get organised if your house is full to bursting and you can’t find anything. Take a roll of bin bags and have a good Spring Clean.
Divide your items as follows:
- Only fit for the bin
- Recycling (either go to your recycling centre or give away unwanted items on www.jumbletown.ie).
- For sale (if you have the inclination to set up shop at your local car-boot sale.
- Deep storage (items that need storage but are used only once a year, eg electric blankets).
- Repair – anything that needs to be altered, repaired or cleaned
- Action items – articles to read, letters that need answering. (If you still have them a week later consider letting them go.)
Be Ruthless
The key here is to be ruthless. The following which are really ‘Excuses for keeping things’ should definitely be on the get-rid list.
- Stacks or old letters, magazines or books that you were going to read.
- Things people have given you that no longer fit into your life.
- Things you have been hanging onto in case you need them
- Things you have kept because it would be a waste to let them go.
Tell us what you think
We've given you our top spring cleaning tips - but have we missed anything? What rules do you like to follow when you're reorganising your home? Tell us in a comment!
