Want to declutter your home but don’t know how to get started? Decluttering and creating new habits can sometimes seem like a daunting task. Probably now you feel like your daily routine consists of cleaning up after others and you do not have any energy left. Or maybe you moved into your new home months ago and are still living out of boxes. Either way really.

Everybody has to start somewhere:

Take a deep breath and hang in there.

You too can create the home you’ve always wanted.

Many of us feel overwhelmed by even the idea of decluttering. When there’s so much to do, it’s hard to pick out one of the chaos-dominated areas and get started. The urge to tidy often flags and tasks are left undone: leaving us with even more clutter. If you’re feeling overwhelmed and don’t know how to get started, let me inspire you a little.

From chaos to order

I believe that decluttering is not a goal, but a process. When you feel like you’ve done everything and you’re finally in order, you can start again. Your children are in school and playing less, you’re moving to a new house or getting a new job. With the right strategy, you’ll be able to stay on top of the situation and prevent chaos from setting in. I mean who does not want to change, I am positive I do not want to back to my twenties… I really appreciate my Dyson now, thank you very much!

So if you are changing, your habits are changing and you appreciation toward things has changed, why are you not letting go the stuff you do not really need anymore and give more space to stuff you do?

Planning is a must before anything else!

If you know why you want to change the status quo, what you want to achieve and plan it step by step, you can easily restore order and calm to your home.

Life always interferes. Right now it’s summer break. There’s no school, the kids are at home all day, you have to keep them occupied all the time to avoid them tearing the house apart. But when you plan ahead, you regain control of the chaos. Then come busier days, illnesses, holidays, control is always in your hands and you can focus on what’s really important in your life and the people who make you happy.

I’ve put together what you need to do to get back in control and get your life and house back in order. First, you need to find motivation in why you want to make a change, then define what your goal is, and finally, take small steps to plan the process of how you will achieve your goal. Let’s look at these in a bit more detail!

WHY – the motivation behind decluttering and organizing

Decide why you want to declutter

First, and most importantly, you need to be honest with yourself about why you want to make a change in your daily life and declutter your home. This reason or feeling must come from within. It’s probably been building up inside you for a while, but you’ve always suppressed it somehow. You’ve always thought something else was more important, but now that’s enough.

Ask yourself what is bothering you so much about the situation you are in. Why do you feel that this cannot go on as t used to? I’m not saying it will be easy. It is often difficult to be completely honest with ourselves. This is the beginning of a change in mindset that is really necessary to achieve your goal. So, even if you can’t do it the first time, try it several times. Ask yourself more questions, tell yourself how do you feel when you enter your home?

For example, the reason for organizing your home might be …

… do I pick up too many unnecessary things from the floor every day?

… do I hate being at home?

… I do not remember the last time I felt ease and not stress when at home

… I can never find things when I’m looking for them, so I’ve had to buy new ones several times

… I feel I rather move, that deal with the stuff

Now that you’ve determined your why for home organization, you need an achievable yet a challenging goal. Defining a goal is also an important step, because it will allow you to plan the tasks involved. Your goal will inspire you, help you stay focused and prevent you from giving up.

GOAL – my organization goals

The steps to setting your goal:

• Formulate your goal: my goal is, that when I walk into my home, I feel ….
• Determine your goal
• List the benefits that will come from achieving it
• Post your goal in a place you can see every day
• Tell your family, friends, co-workers

Everyone has a different inner motivation. What is your ideal environment? What is the outcome you would most like to see? A goal that is above all else and that you want so much to achieve that you are willing to do something about it?

You can start from a place why you don’t have guests over ever, but you would want a home where they can drop in at any time – and you don’t start running around in a mad rush to suddenly put stuff away. You just open the door and smile and invite them in. Also without saying “sorry, the house is a big mess” excuse.

Or if you feel your home is simply getting so cluttered that you don’t feel like going home. You don’t have to start with one thing in mind, just think about the goal. Once you have a guideline, you can start formulating your exact answers to the questions above.

Use these to help you define your goal:

• Specific – Get specific!
• Measurable – Make the results verifiable!
• Action-oriented – The goal is meaningful if it can be linked to an action
• Realistic – Be honest with yourself!
• Deadline-driven – Give yourself a deadline to achieve it

Make yourself secure! This goal most likely doesn’t have to last a week. You need to be as specific as possible so that you can’t find loopholes for yourself. So don’t just say “my goal is to tidy up”!

Write it down! As strange as it sounds, really write it down on a piece of paper. People who write down their goals are much more likely to achieve them than people who just say them to themselves or don’t say them out loud.

Put the paper where you can see it every day and it will motivate you. It could be a mirror in the hallway or the back of your transparent phone case. Put it up. Let it do its job and inspire you on the hard days. It’s most effective to write down your why and your purpose on a piece of paper to give you more motivation.

Questions that help you finding your inner motivation

Why will this make it better/easier for you? And for your family? For your work and productivity? How will the order make a difference to your daily life? What annoys you the most at home? What kind of home would you like to live in?

Some ideas for figuring out your goals:

“I will have a place for all my belongings in my home by the end of the …. (month 31th). So papers with papers in a big plastic storage box, school stuff with school stuff and coats with coats. I find a place for each smaller category, create a space for it, or let go of what I don’t need. An item will either be in its home or I will be using it. There is no exception.”

“I will sort through all the items in my home until month 31, year. I make a conscious decision about the objects to see if they really have a place in my life. I will let go anything I have held onto for years but never looked at or used. It could be cables I don’t know what to do with, or old phones, greeting cards from years ago. I let go of anything I haven’t used in a year.” (This goal requires a mindset shift and your relationship with objects)

Take your time to set your goal.

You will need a goal that can motivate you for weeks, months.

You need to choose something ambitious, but it is important that it is still achievable.

PLAN – create a realistic plan for tidy up

• Plan how you will achieve your goal
• Based on your goal, set smaller, tangible tasks
• Schedule your tasks, write down in your calendar what you will do when
• Check the reality of your plan. Be honest with yourself. 

Be honest with yourself!

No one will do it for you. Figuring out why you want to make a change and setting a goal you want to achieve gets you nowhere. Setting goals and making a plan is necessary, but it is just beginning: you need to work out in detail how you’re going to achieve your goal. You need to think through the smaller and bigger tasks you will need to do to get your own system. There is no magic fairy.

A goal without plans is just a dream.

Without precise, detailed planning and goal setting, you’ll just be wandering from room to room with a half-empty bin bag, scraping the surface.

Decluttering won’t be complicated, just take it step by step!

That’s why planning is necessary. Once you have the tasks, put them on your calendar and agree with yourself that you won’t push these dates off for someone else. These hours, half days will be like your little one’s dentist appointment. They cannot be changed. By making an appointment for yourself, you are already committing to your goal.

Try to schedule your initial tasks so that you are able to achieve small successes right from the start. You can start with the environment you see first thing in the morning. This could be the bathroom: for example, the surfaces in front of your eyes. If the first thing you see in the morning is a tidy bathroom cabinet, you’ll be more motivated to continue tidying up with the next tasks. Not only will you get closer to your goal, but your whole day will be brighter. All this can be achieved in just one 15-minute task, tidying up your bathroom counter.

Make it all about your WHY and your MOTIVATION. If you started with the fact that your home is causing you stress, you can start with the biggest stress-inducing pile. Trust your intuition. You’ll know what the storm drawer or messy drawer you need to tackle will be. Go for the ugliest pile, go for the one that bothers you the most.

Still not clear on what you need to do?

Pick a quiet spot in your home, away from all the noise and start making a list. Think about how long each task will take and write it down in your calendar. Give yourself time to relax too! Take a walk around your home and see what you may have missed. Look in your drawers: do you have drawer organizers? In your built-in wardrobe and closet: storage baskets?

You may never have an empty bag, as Marie Kondo advises, or your life may never be completely free of unnecessary items. It’s all about achieving the goals you set for yourself. It doesn’t matter whether you start with the KonMari method or other decluttering methods, or where you get useful advice before you start.

In fact, all you need to achieve your own goal is to decide that you want to change: why you want to change, what the end goal is and how you will get there. After that, it will be easier. But to get started, you need to change your relationship to things.

Organization goals: It’s time for a change!

I know it’s often hard to let go of things, but at times like this you can wonder, what’s the worst that could happen? Having to buy it again – even years later. So if you haven’t used some of your kitchen gadgets in years, let them go! Sell them, give them away to someone who will enjoy it in the present. I promise you, in a week you won’t even remember what you’ve parted with.

Before you start decluttering, take photos of your home. The only time you look back on the past should be when you see how far you’ve come.