Note: A good idea before we start is to find a “sorting room” with some spare space where we can keep everything we are going to sort later on. In my case it was our guest bedroom. We will come back to this later.
Magazines
Can you imagine if you were to read this article then print it off and store it in your house forever? That’s sort of what magazines are. Here’s how we are going to handle this situation:
The obvious place to begin is by sorting through the pile and getting rid of anything that you know you won’t read and be donated to either a hospital or a doctors surgery. When I did this, I managed to move over half of the pile into the sorting room.
With the remaining magazines, decide on a time when you are going to read them. I decided to read one a day at lunch time, but you could read them on your way to work or even before bed. That’s one a day on the read pile!
Finally, make a scrapbook full of cutouts of your favourite articles, recipes and outfits before the magazines are disposed of.
Wardrobe
You might think otherwise, but I bet there’s a load of stuff in your wardrobe the you won’t wear for months. Don’t believe me? Try this decluttering trick:
Start by taking all the clothes off your hanging rail and putting them back on with the hook facing you. Then, whenever you use an item of clothing, put it back on the rail facing away from you. By the end of the month you would have sorted your clothes into what you wear and what you don’t wear and you can feel less guilty about moving that nasty blue turtle neck into the sorting room.
I personally think mail is a useless waste of trees that does nothing apart from giving me yet another job. Heres how we’re going to approach it:
Instead of letting it take up every surface within ten feet of the front door, we are going to put a box by the door. Coupons and other junk mail can go straight in the recycling bin, but all that important stuff that you will need to file later can go into this box.
When you have the time, go through the whole box and file accordingly.
Pro tip: putting a “No Junk Mail Please” sticker on the door actually works.
Clean out cluttered rooms
This is actually a lot more difficult than it sounds. When you’re in the mess its impossible to organise it, so I use what I like to call “the hallway technique”. To do this technique you should completely empty the room and move everything into the hallway. Then, item by item, you can move everything you want to keep back where you want it. Everything left in the hallway goes straight into the sorting room.
Sorting the Sorting Room
By now you should have a sorting room full of rubbish and ready to be broken down into 3 piles:
-bin
-donate
-and store.
Bin
When disposing of the “bin” pile, be sure to recycle anything that is eligible. Depending on how big the rubbish pile is, you might want to hire a skip and clear the garden whilst you’re at it.
Donate
Many things that you don’t want might be of some value to someone else. Whenever possible, donate to a local charity shop.
Everything that you decide to keep should be moved into storage by a removal company. This way, it is out of your house but still yours. I would recommend coming back to everything you have in storage after a month or two to see if you still want all of it.
These are my tips for your spring clean and now its time to get out and enjoy the daffodils!
*This is a collaborative post*
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