How to Stop Clutter Creeping Back Into Your Home

1. Complete one-minute jobs straightaway

Make sure you complete any one-minute jobs straight away. These are jobs that take less than a minute to do. If you don’t do these small jobs straightaway, they turn into bigger jobs.

Some one-minute jobs, like sorting the mail and throwing away the mail you don’t need, can be done straight away, to reduce the extra build-up of unnecessary things coming into your home.

Other small jobs include bringing the basket upstairs from the laundry room after washing. If you don’t do it right away, you create more little jobs that need doing and that becomes much bigger in your mind.

Try to get rid of that extra stress and stop clutter in your home caused by those little things hanging around because you haven’t put them away.

2. Make sure everything has a home

When you take items out and are finished with them, put them back where they go, instead of letting them sit there and not go to the place that they need to go.

For example, when you have bills that come in through the door, if you keep them, put them straight into the drawer or folder where they go, rather than leaving them on the kitchen table. Cables that you use for charging should have a specific drawer they go into, to make it easy to find them and put them away.

That’s the key to stopping clutter. If everything has a home, it makes it much easier to tidy and creates those one-minute jobs that are easy to do.

3. Have a one-in-one-out policy

This will help you keep tabs on how you maintain clutter in your home. Anytime you bring something into your home, it’s important to take something else out. If you buy a new piece of clothing, see if you can declutter an older piece that is no longer serving its purpose.

The same can go for different items, like dining plates so that you don’t have extra numbers of items in your home. This will help with getting rid of clutter in your home.

4. Consider each purchase

Before buying something ask yourself: “Do I really need it?” “Will it make me happy?” “Will it serve a purpose?” “Is it a necessity to get through day-to-day life?” “Or, will it not really do anything for me?”

Really consider each item and knick-knack that you buy, before it comes into your home and becomes extra stuff you don’t want.

5. Create daily decluttering habits

This will help you keep clutter at bay, while continually trying to reduce the number of items within your home. Creating decluttering habits will really help, because it will allow you to constantly reduce the number of items you own.

Ingrain little decluttering habits in your system, so you do this naturally. Stop the clutter from creeping back into your home, and maintain the level of items you want in your home.

How to stop clutter creeping back in

Decluttering doesn’t have to be hard or stressful. There are a number of ways to stop clutter in your home.

Let us know in the comments what your favorite decluttering tips are. How do you keep your home tidy and minimalist?