Questions to ask yourself … to declutter your home and organise your life
What regularly annoys me about this space?
Conduct a space audit – walk all the way through your home, writing notes as you go. Notice what you like, what you don’t like and what you could change. In the front room you might love the colour, but hate the bookshelf full of toys. If you got a better bit of furniture to hide them, in the evening you could kick back and relax without looking at them. Or perhaps you always put the washing in the front room when you have a spare room upstairs, or maybe there’s an occasional chair that’s huge, and nobody sits on it, so get rid of it to make your room feel more spacious.
How much space do I have – and how much do I need?
Be honest with yourself, because the problem most of the time is not that you haven’t got enough space, it’s that you’ve got too much stuff. Be realistic about the furniture you have for the space you have: if you have a one-bed flat, you have to live like you have a one-bed flat, not a three-bed house. Maybe you have all your shoes in a rack at the front door. If you stored spring/summer shoes elsewhere and just kept autumn/winter ones on show, your shoe rack would look neater and your hallway less claustrophobic.
Do I love it, do I use it, do I need it?
So often we’re keeping things that are broken, that don’t fit, that we don’t need – that we don’t even like. Ask yourself: does it warrant a place in my home, and do I have space for it? If not, why are you keeping it?
What’s worthy of a prime location?
Think of your house as real estate. Does your slow cooker really warrant space right next to your hob, or is it better somewhere else because you only use it a couple of times each winter? The most accessible cupboard is prime real estate, so it needs your colander, grater, sieve – the things you use daily.
What do I do five days a week?
Many people have a spare room where people only stay once every six months, yet tell me they’re working from the kitchen table and are struggling to focus. That’s your day job – why are you living for other people? What you do five days a week outweighs what you do once a month – or even once every six months – so make that the priority.
What’s the best way to store this item?
Getting storage right is hugely important. Think about the flow of your house and what makes sense. Ask yourself: does it make sense to store all my heavy coats in my wardrobe? No – they take up too much space, and your wardrobe is prime real estate.
If you can’t increase the storage, you have to reduce the items. Or it might be you can buy an additional piece of storage; if you’re lacking space in your galley kitchen, can you add slim shelving for jars of dried foods? Or put shelves over the fridge for cookbooks? Make additional storage in otherwise dead spaces.
Where would it be in the supermarket?
Think about creating “zones”, so you might have a breakfast zone in the kitchen, with all your spreads, bread, protein powders, teabags. If you’re not sure what belongs with what, think about supermarkets – you don’t see tins of tomato next to peanut butter, washing powder next to dried pasta. That’s how you have to think when grouping items in your house.
Have I got the resources I need to make this happen?
The reason people never declutter properly is they start but don’t finish. They launch into one kitchen drawer and think, sod this, I’m going out for lunch. Time is your most important commodity, and the way to declutter is to empty the space you’re looking at completely, clean it, go through it, organise it, then put it back. Set enough time aside, ensure you’re undisturbed so you can focus – and do it properly.
