Keeping Your Home Clutter-Free in the New Year! | Countryside Self Storage

Keep, Donate, Discard
Sometimes, clutter can feel inevitable, especially around the holidays. It seems like there’s so much more stuff around the house than normal: decorations, gift-wrapping supplies, and everything you need for all of those baking and crafting projects. On top of that, you have a stream of visitors who all come bearing gifts. To help everyone keep their home clutter-free in the new year, your Kansas and Missouri self storage professionals at Countryside have scoured the web to come up with some top tips from the experts!

Set Simple Goals. When it comes time to start decluttering our homes, many of us feel immediately overwhelmed by the size of the job. One of the best tips we found from the experts is to start small. Pick a room and go through it piece by piece. Sort everything into three categories: items to donate, items to put into self storage, and items to throw out. You’ll be surprised how much progress you make! If a whole room is still too much, you can start even smaller with just a single closet, a toybox, a shelf, or a dresser.

Get Your Bins Together. We already mentioned sorting things into three categories: things you plan to donate or sell, things that go into the trash, and things that go into storage. One of the best ways to organize these categories is simply by dividing items into plastic bins. Plastic bins are great for sorting, and many of them can even be used for long-term storage.

Use the One Year Rule. Many experts recommend using the One-Year Rule to determine whether you really need to keep something around. What is that? It’s just like it sounds. If you’ve had something for a year or more and haven’t used it, you probably don’t need it, and it’s time to let it go.

Repurpose Areas Where Clutter Collects. We all have those places in the house where clutter always seems to collect. Experts actually recommend re-purposing these spaces so that clutter doesn’t have a change to accumulate. Maybe the junk drawer becomes a place for craft supplies, or the overstuffed spare closet becomes a writing nook with a desk and nice lighting.

Get Everyone Involved. Decluttering can be a big job, but it goes a lot faster if you get everyone in the household on board. Make each person accountable for their own stuff, hand out bins, and let everyone get in on the sorting. Encourage them to use some of the other tips that we’ve gathered here and make decluttering a team effort!

Store More! Things accumulate over time, and sometimes you can’t bring yourself to part with certain items. We’re talking about mementos and family keepsakes, things that you’re saving for the kids or grandkids, gifts that you’re not comfortable re-gifting, you name it. We all have things we want to keep but that we don’t necessarily want cluttering up the house. That’s where self storage in Missouri and Kansas comes in. With four premier storage facilities in Pittsburg, Joplin, and Frontenac, Countryside Self-Storage has everything you need for your next storage project, whether that’s storing those Christmas decorations when the holiday season is over or decluttering your house in the new year.