Tried-and-True Decluttering Strategies

Including a nifty sticky note trick!

We recently discovered a handful of roly-poly looking bugs making themselves a little bit too cozy under our kitchen and bathroom sink. Then, they emerged in the corner of our bedroom, and the edge of our basement laundry room. After having a brief fight with these pests last year, we immediately recognized them as carpet beetles: generally harmless but aggravating little pests that eat carpet, wood, books, and natural fabrics like cotton and wool. In other words, they have a lot they could munch on in our home. If I’m being fair, apparently up to 93% of homes have carpet beetles. But let me just say: You do NOT want to mix an insect ‘infestation’ (no matter how objectively mild) with a nearly 38-week pregnant person’s nesting instincts. So guess who has spent the last few days crawling around on my hands and knees scrubbing baseboards and searching for carpet beetles (while waiting for the ‘organic’ exterminator)? If you guessed me, you would be right.

There’s nothing quite like scrubbing everything you own to make you… well, not want to own it anymore. It doesn’t hurt that the re-emergence of baby gear— I’m looking at you, bassinet and baby swing— *feels* like it fills every nook and cranny of our home. (Coming soon: House tour for our family of 5 in a 1,200 sq. foot home).

So in addition to the copious energy I’ve exerted searching for microscopic larvae, I’ve been on a bit of a decluttering mission. I know it sounds more refined to call it “editing” or “curating.” But what it really feels like is an effort to return my home— and, by extension, my sanity— to equilibrium.

Minimizing occasionally gets a negative reputation for plenty of reasons, not the least of which is the idea that restricting what you own is the equivalent of practicing diet culture for your home or wardrobe.

But here’s the thing. I’m not exactly a deprivation person: I’m not interested in depriving myself of chocolate cake, much less something that will add value to my life. And yet, I’ve developed a bit of a reputation for my ruthless decluttering skills. Case in point: this text from a dear friend just a few days ago.

That’s because I view minimizing in a very straightforward way: Getting rid of the things that no longer add value to my life to make space for what does. It’s a concept you can apply to everything from your cookware to your calendar. And over the years both minimizing my own home and helping others make sense of their space, there are a few tried-and-true tricks I’ve used to simplify the process:

Touch it once.

Plenty of people will tell you to sort items into three piles: keep, discard, and ‘maybe.’ But the ‘maybe’ is the pile that really induces decision fatigue. Agonizing over a particular item multiple times is likely not worth your energy (and will leave you burnt out on decluttering), so in your initial run-throughs, don’t focus on perfection. Start with the ‘low-hanging fruit’— things that are easy and not likely to be sentimental, like the contents of your Tupperware cabinet or junk drawer. Get rid of any ‘no’s’ but don’t create giant maybe piles to agonize over.

If it’s a ‘maybe,’ put a sticky note on it.

You can always box up the items you aren’t sure about and store them away for a period of time— say, one to three months— to see if you will need them. But if you want an alternative to packing away your things, try labeling sticky notes with today’s date (whenever you happen to be going through your things). Leave a dated sticky note on anything you suspect might be too infrequently used. Over the next few months, if you end up using the item, remove the sticky note. If the sticky note stays, you have the reassurance to yourself that, even with the item conveniently on its shelf, you still didn’t reach for it. Commit to removing anything you didn’t reach for after a few months.

You can also use dated sticky notes on your partner’s things— I have definitely labeled a few of my husband’s never-worn hats!— but I’d only recommend this if your loved one is likely to get a good laugh, not take it as a personal affront.

Keep your favorites or the best.

Do you own twelve grey sweaters, but only reach for two? Keep only your favorites. Have three potato peelers, two of which are collecting dust? Pass the other two on. This strategy does require you to sort through similar items at the same time— but chances are, it makes more sense to store all your sweaters in the same place anyway. Keeping only our favorites also reminds us that life is too short to stash items away in a drawer for another day— so please, wear your favorite t-shirts and pull out the ‘good’ dishes for a casual weeknight meal.

And those ‘just-in-case’ items? You know, the ski googles you kept even though you moved to Florida, or the cookbooks that live in an oven you never turn on? These are remnants of your fantasy self, and it’s okay to release them in favor of items that reflect who you really are in this life stage.

Photo by Sarah Brown on Unsplash

Don’t overthink the value of your unwanted items.

One of the tricky little things our brains like to do is convince us an object is worth more than it actually is simply because we own it. That’s the same reason grandparents are convinced that millennials want the enormous cabinets full of baubles and fine China— but it often results in us hanging on to items we no longer need or want, just because we purchased it in the first place.

But the money that we originally paid for an item was gone the second we clicked ‘purchase’ or handed over our card. The technical term for this is a “sunk cost”— and the “sunk cost fallacy” tells me that sometimes, it’s time to abandon ship on an item that’s no longer serving me, even if I invested quite a bit into it originally.

And when it’s time to abandon ship? Recognize that there are some items that have a great secondhand market, and others that simply don’t. For example, it’s likely worth your time and effort to resell a $1,200 Snoo Bassinet… but a $30 pair of American Eagle jeans? Not so much. If you truly need the money, by all means, work the resale market. But for most of the things you are ready to part with, it will likely make more sense to utilize your local Buy Nothing group or donation center. And for other assorted items, here’s a guide to responsibly disposing of pretty much everything.

Tackle seasonal items twice— once at the start of the season, and once after.

One of the fantastic questions I was asked in last week’s Ask-Me-Anything was from reader Nicole, who asked me about my thoughts on seasonal and holiday decor.

My simple answer is this: If you get lots of value and enjoyment out of your decorations, go for it! My grandparents had boxes and boxes of Christmas decorations that they used to completely transform their home every December. But, I’m willing to bet that you would get just as much enjoyment out of a holiday with fewer decor objects— especially if you focus on creating special holiday experiences.

To keep things simple, the only holiday my family decorates for is Christmas. We have one box of holiday decorations (we don’t currently even do a full tree!) that we pull out in early December, and by Christmas Day I’m itching to get it all put away again. Now that the girls are in their ‘crafting’ stage, we sometimes have craft-like seasonal items— think, a carved pumpkin around Halloween or a cardboard turkey they painted for Thanksgiving— gracing our home for a few weeks, but these don’t make it past the season.

When you are going through these seasonal items— both decor and seasonal clothing items— do an initial paring down when you first pull them out. Get rid of anything that is worn out or no longer brings you joy. At the end of the season, evaluate these items again before putting them away. Was there any clothing item that wasn’t as useful as you thought it was? Any decor object that was too much of a hassle to pull out again?

Right now, you might still be in the midst of frantic back-to-school preparations, and the shifting of schedules as we ease into fall. But this seasonal change is the perfect opportunity to re-evaluate your home and make it work for you.