Clutter-Free Home Tips

If there’s one thing that discourages me and weighs my spirit down, it’s CLUTTER.  If I can see it, or am aware that it is hidden under beds or behind closet doors, it’s as though it is all piled on my shoulders. It’s just suffocating to me.

This is one reason that I recently changed my living room arrangement and decor. It feels so good in there, but what about every other space in my home?

Enter Focus on the Family where I recently listened to a podcast with Kathy Lipp, who has written the book, The Clutter Free Home.  This gal knows her way around dealing with clutter! My favorite part of the broadcast was when she shared 10 Principles of a Clutter-Free Home.  You can find them on the Focus on the Family Web site where you’ll also be able to hear the audio and order the book. Go listen and read these great helps! Below are Kathy Lipp’s tips for having a Clutter-Free Home. The bold print is hers – the italicized is my response.

1. Make clutter management a daily habit. If we work on clearing out the clutter each day, we won’t have the dreaded job of a huge space that needs days or weeks to clean up.
2. Designate a place for everything. Putting objects in “their space” will create calm.  Never just lay or stuff something in a place where it doesn’t belong.  You’ll never find it!
3. Don’t put it aside, put it away. Putting things away immediately keeps you from having to touch it twice, making you more productive!
4. Stop being reactive and start being proactive. Waiting for the holiday you’re hosting, or guests who are going to visit is not the best way to deal with clutter.  Working each day will allow you to be prepared for those occasions without panic!
5. Don’t argue over stuff.  Negotiate space. Give family members their own spot for say, the garage by the use of bins or other storage containers.  Once it’s full, that’s it.
6. Don’t use storage as a way to delay decisions. Stuffing items into a space isn’t de-cluttering – it’s postponing the decision of what to do with it.  Decide now.
7. Once you diagnose the clutter, you can dispense with it. Look and determine the areas that need attention and work 15 minutes at a time.  Set a timer and do as much as is possible in that time frame.  
8. Things are not relationships. That item that was given to you by a family member that is no longer useful to you can be given away or trashed when you realize that the item isn’t part of the relationship.  Let go of the guilt.  Enjoy the memories of that person instead.
9. Just-in-case thinking is impoverished thinking. Thinking that you might need that item sometime in the future is really not thinking truth about our God!  He promised to supply your needs.  If it is not being useful at this time or in the very near future, get rid of it.
10. You deserve peace in your home. I think I would say, “We need peace in our homes.”  We are bombarded by a noisy, crazy world.  Stepping into the doors of our home shouldn’t be more of the same.  We can create visual peace by clearing out the clutter! 

These points truly inspired me to dig in and clean out!  Which one of these ten points is hardest for you?

Refresh your home by clearing out the clutter!