Decluttering for Spring

I, like the rest of the world it seems, have recently jumped on the Marie Kondo bandwagon. I hate clutter but I also own a lot of ‘stuff’ that I don’t want to get rid of, so I’m always looking for clever ways to organise and store things in my small apartment.

I love the Konmari concept of sparking joy – if an item of clothing or a book or trinket doesn’t spark joy in you when you pick it up then you don’t need it in your life. I applied this concept to my clothing and managed to fill three large bags of clothes for the charity shop, even though I had already donated some old clothes not too long ago. I now have my eye on lots of other stuff around the house that isn’t sparking joy! I also totally rearranged my chest of drawers using Konmari folding methods and so much more fits in the space than before. You can find out more about the Konmari method from Marie’s book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up or her show “Tidying up with Marie Kondo” on Netflix.

Here are some of my tips and tricks to help you get your home organised and tidy, and keep it that way.

1) Do a ten minute tidy

If the thought of organising everything seems totally overwhelming this will help you to start you off slowly. Get two bin bags and designate one for a actual rubbish and in the other put clothes you no longer wear, books you want to give away and anything else you want out of the house. Divide the areas you want to tidy into sections and take ten minutes every day to go through a section and see what you can purge. By doing this regularly you’ll soon have a handle on your clutter.

2) Manage your Paper Trail

Oh paper. Paper, paper everywhere. Bills, receipts, junk mail, letters, empty envelopes (the most infuriating), paper just seems to pile and I can’t stand it. I recently bought a shallow basket in IKEA to try and contain the paper monster and so far it’s working.

This is the system I use. When the post gets delivered it’s divided into 3 piles – junk, file, action. The junk normally goes straight into the recycling, post that isn’t a bill gets filed away and anything else gets put in the basket. Bills stay in the basket by the computer until they are paid, and then get filed away. Now and then I go through the basket to check for any stray empty envelopes or letters that didn’t get filed properly.

This has mostly resulted in all of the paper being accumulated in one place, instead of seven, and nothing important gets lost or overlooked. The basket also helps to make it look a little bit tidier than it would otherwise. It’s still a pile of paper but it’s one I can put up with.

3) Add extra storage

Living in a small apartment means there isn’t a whole lot of storage space. We are lucky to have a separate storage closet but a lot of it is taken up with large items like the hoover, suitcases, and lots of cardboard boxes for when we eventually move.

I’ve recently discovered the joy of storing things vertically and it’s a game changer. A couple of months ago we got an over the door shoe hanger for our shoes were kept here and there all over the apartment. Now 20 pairs of shoes are hanging nicely on the inside of the closet door where no one has to see them but they are easily accessible.

I also like to store smaller bags inside of bigger ones and hang them on hooks. It makes things look a little neater and keeps similar things together so you always know where they are when you need them.

In the kitchen we got some small caddy boxes to store herbs and spices in the cupboard. It’s much easier to pull out the entire caddy to get the jar you need instead of rummaging around in the cupboard because the Italian seasoning is right at the very back.

We also got some shelf risers to add extra shelf space for mugs and glasses. These slot in between the regular shelves in your cupboard and allow you to put things both under them and on them so you can store more items within the same space without your cupboards getting cluttered.

4) Set up a keep sake box

You don’t have to be too ruthless when you are decluttering. A keep sake box is a great way to store items and trinkets you want to keep but don’t have room to display. I’m a sucker for keeping ticket stubs of concerts I’ve been to and also every single Christmas/Birthday/random occasion card I ever get from anybody.

I found a pretty storage box to put eveything in and now they all live safely on top of my wardrobe. Having everything together makes it easy to look through them when you want to relive the memories and also makes it easy to grab if you need to save them from a flood/fire/other potential disaster.