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How to Declutter Your Home for the New Year

By Catie Moore

Organizing your home is a great way to start the New Year on the right foot. All those items that have been lingering around, cluttering up the space and making it difficult to find what you need can be organized with some basic steps!

Start by setting goals for yourself. Do you want to clear out that backroom of extra items? Find a creative way to store all your paperwork? Get rid of old furniture and replace it with something more practical? Decide exactly what you would like to achieve and break down smaller tasks from there. Having a plan will make organizing much easier.

Once you’ve got your goals down, take an inventory of all the stuff in your home. You may find that you don’t need everything you have and can easily part with a few items. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, take it one room at a time and focus on the task at hand. Get rid of any broken items or anything that is no longer useful - it will help to make your space look cleaner and more organized.

Once you’ve cleared out the clutter, start organizing! Rearrange furniture where needed and think about better ways to store all your belongings. Utilize vertical storage solutions if possible - this way, you’ll be making use of every inch of space in the room. Invest in some clever organizers such as stackable bins or drawer dividers for easy sorting of all those odds and ends.

Finally, make sure to keep the organization! Take some time each week to put everything back in its place and you’ll find that organizing your home will be much easier. A little bit of effort now can save you a lot of stress later, so embrace your New Year’s resolution and start organizing today!

Here are some helpful organization tips.

1. Clothes: Put all your clothes in one big pile so you can see how much you really have. Next, hold each item individually and decide whether to keep or get rid of it, only keeping items that spark joy for you. You will hone your sensitivity to joy as you go through the process. Tip! To best utilize drawer space and to see your clothes better, fold shirts and pants by creating a rectangle in the middle and folding it in half then into thirds. Store them standing up in the drawer instead of lying flat.

2. Books: Make sure you’re keeping books that you will read. Again, they should spark joy in you when you hold them. Tip! Keep your books visible. You will read them more if they’re in a spot where you can see them. 3. Paper: Put all papers into a pile and organize them into three categories: papers that need attention (bills), papers you need to keep short-term (warranties) and papers you need to keep forever (birth certificates). Then get rid of what you don’t need. Tip! Subdivide your papers according to frequency. Put the infrequently used papers into a single ordinary clear plastic folder.

4. Miscellaneous: When organizing miscellaneous items, use small boxes to compartmentalize for neater drawers. Tip! Keep items of the same size together and use tiny boxes to separate and store items.

5. Sentimental: Try putting all sentimental items to the side and saving them for last, when your joy and sensitivity is heightened. Tip! When organizing your photos, categorize them by year and event so you can find them easier. Lastly, don’t buy storage containers before you tidy up and decide what you’re storing.