Minimalist Rules: 5 Simple Steps For A Clutter Free Home

Let's dive into my five simple steps that can help you achieve a clean and organized living space.

1. Admit and commit

Admit that you have a problem. You already know that you have too much stuff in your house, and it's stressing you out. So why are you going to change? 

It's essential to make sure that you have a why behind it all. If you don't, things will get hard, and you'll probably quit, and it'll last a weekend.

Go for a walk, cry it out, do whatever you need, and find out your why behind all of this. You must find out why and then commit to doing something about it. For me, it was reducing stress, saving time, and being way more productive because everything was organized. 

Maybe it's enlisting a friend or family member to help you out or committing to a schedule of decluttering for a couple of hours every weekend or ten minutes daily.

A trick I like to use on myself is setting firm deadlines. So maybe commit to hosting a party two months away, and you have to get your whole house decluttered before a bunch of people show up at your house. Deadlines are fantastic motivation; it turns out that it always takes exactly how long the deadline is. 

2. Remove excess

This is also known as getting rid of all your crap. This is honestly the funnest, most addicting part of this whole process.

Once you start going through your house and getting rid of a bunch of stuff by decluttering, you start to see actual results and feel like a weight is lifted. As you get rid of more and more stuff, a little bit more space opens up in your mind. 

I like to start with a room that is one of the main rooms in the house. When you walk in the door, if the first thing you see is this lovely, peaceful home, you will want the rest of your home to match how that room makes you feel.

So pick one room you spend a lot of time in and attack that room. Then make sure that it stays that way to motivate you to do that to the rest of your house. 

3. Find a home for what you want to keep

It can be very tempting to try to reverse the order of these two, where you organize all your stuff first, and then you declutter a little bit. Still, I think it's super important to get rid of stuff first and then go through and start to organize and find a home for everything.

Your keys, wallet, books, clothes, everything needs a home. You won't leave stuff lying around as much if it has somewhere where it belongs. 

I like to use exposed shelving to ensure that I don't just shove a bunch of stuff in a closet or in a drawer. When it's exposed, and you can see it, you're forced to organize and keep only the essential things there.

Whatever process works for you, take however long it takes and find a home for each thing you own. 

4. Change your habit

This is another critical step to keeping your house looking how you want it to look.

As a very messy person, even when I didn't have a bunch of stuff, I would still leave it strewn about the house just because that was how I had lived. It took me quite a while to change my habits.

This could look like never leaving dishes in the sink and just having that be a rule or addressing your paper clutter as soon as it comes in the door and creating a system on how you will deal with that.

I love to have a two to five-minute pickup or cleaning throughout the day and then last thing at night, so when I wake up in the morning, everything's exactly where it should be. 

5. Bring in less 

When I started, I went through all of those first steps, but then I kept bringing more and more stuff into my home. So every few months, I had to keep decluttering again because it would build up.

I still get rid of a box of stuff at least once a month, so it's still a process, but stopping the influx of random stuff is a massive step in this process. That is the root of the problem. It's consumerism. It's bringing in too much stuff. 

I had to stop looking at clearance racks, going to thrift stores, or anything like that because I would see something that I didn't need, but because it was 70% off, 90% off, I just got it because it was such a good deal even if I didn't need that thing. 

You can also do this with online shopping and use something like the seven-day rule, leaving it in your cart for a week before you actually check out and buy that item. A lot of times, you go back, look at it, and realize you don't need this thing. It stops a lot of impulse buying from Amazon and elsewhere.

I also have a browser extension that just makes you wait for 30 seconds before you can buy anything online. That has stopped me from buying a lot of stuff. 

Clutter free home

Having a clutter-free home leads to a much less stressful life. You spend less time taking care of things and have more time for what you love.

What has worked for you when decluttering? Share your tips in the comments below.