How A Declutter Checklist Can Help You Make The Difficult Decisions

There's no doubt about it: looking around a messy, cluttered home can make it hard to know where to start when decluttering is your goal. Maybe the amount of possessions you own has gradually increased to become unmanageable. Or, perhaps you need to declutter before a move to help reduce your relocation expenses and start fresh somewhere new. Whatever your motivation, if you want to reduce the burden of your possessions, you may be looking for good ideas to help you get started. It may sound too good to be true, but simply using a checklist is one of the strategies that work best for decluttering your home. This method can help keep you from feeling overwhelmed when it's time to make difficult decisions — as well as aiding you in keeping your goals realistic, so you can keep moving forward.

You could make your own checklist — you can no doubt think of items off the top of your head that will be easy to get rid of, such as worn-out shoes, old cell phones that no longer work, or clothing that you used to love but now makes you cringe every time you try it on. However, you don't even have to make your own list, since you can find decluttering checklists online to get started. Using one of these can give you great ideas on where to begin without having to walk through your home to examine your stuff. You can then make the list fit your needs by crossing out the items you don't need to purge or aren't ready to part with yet.

Going through your home to decide what to keep and what to get rid of can be overwhelming — if you focus on the checklist first, and then go through your home to collect the items you're ready to part with, you can save yourself mental and emotional fatigue. Focusing on your list helps you get rid of easy items first to make yourself some space. For instance, when you're decluttering your kitchen, your list might advise you to get rid of food storage containers that are missing either lids or bottoms. You shouldn't spend much time deliberating — the list gives you a straightforward guideline, and it's easy to identify the containers that fall into that category. And as you scratch items off your decluttering checklist, you'll feel like you've made some wins, which can help you build momentum.

Plus, with a checklist organized by room type, the whole process will feel less difficult, since you can keep your decluttering goal for the day focused in short bursts. You may be able to knock out a smaller room, such as a bathroom, in just a few hours. Tossing out items like expired sunscreen shouldn't require too much thought and won't exhaust you on the decision-making level. And since streamlining belongings isn't a project most of us can complete in a single day, having an ongoing list at the ready can help us jump back into the clearing process when our time and energy permit. That way, we don't have to waste time re-organizing our thoughts when we jump back into decluttering mode.