Tips for Eliminating Clutter in NYC Homes
Whether your home is a 4-bedroom townhouse or a 400-square-foot apartment, eliminating your NYC clutter will maximize your living space, save you time (and often money), and reduce anxiety. A major first step in getting and staying organized, eliminating clutter in your NYC home can seem overwhelming, but by breaking it down into manageable steps, it is doable – and the results after decluttering your NYC home make the effort so worthwhile!
Begin by establishing a deadline for completing your organizing task (a favorite starting point of many NYC professional organizers) and then divide the work into a series of manageable steps and schedule time on your calendar for each of the tasks. Perhaps you have a block of a few hours on a Saturday afternoon that you can schedule for cleaning out and decluttering the kitchen pantry and cabinets in your NYC apartment. Put it on your calendar so that it becomes a priority and is less likely to get bumped. Maybe you’ll plan to spend an hour each night this week going through your closets to get rid of clothing, shoes and other items you no longer need or use. Keep in mind that donating items is a great way to begin decluttering your NYC space and help others.
It may help to have a friend join you to help keep things moving along as you eliminate clutter in your NYC home. So often we can get caught up in the sentimentality of our stuff and having an objective partner can give you that gentle push when you linger too long over old letters or every art project your child made in kindergarten. This is also a case where engaging a professional organizer in NYC can be beneficial, as their expertise and experience allows them to tailor organizing solutions specifically to meet your needs.
Before you begin, gather supplies such as trash bags, cartons, file boxes, pens, markers, labels, and sticky notes. Don’t be tempted to purchase numerous plastic totes or fancy storage containers just yet – you want to have an idea of what you’ll be keeping and storing before you invest in those supplies.
When decluttering a room, avoid constantly leaving the room to put away an item that belongs in another part of your home. Instead collect all of these items in one place, group them by location and put them away once the decluttering task is completed. It is also essential to focus on one item at a time as you sort through piles, boxes, closets, etc. Avoid picking up one item, quickly putting it down, grabbing another, and then doing this three or four times before actually addressing the item in your hand. Pick one item…any one… deal with it, and then move onto the next one.
Set out empty boxes labeled “trash,” “recycle,” “give away,” “sell,” and “transfer.” Place items into these boxes as you sort, but don’t be tempted to start relocating items to another room until the end of the day. If you run from room to room as you work, you’ll get sidetracked.
Once you’ve decluttered a particular living space, maintain it by addressing the piles on a regular basis. Schedule time daily, weekly or somewhere in between based on how quickly stuff accumulates. Managing clutter on a regular basis is much less time-consuming and overwhelming than tackling it as a big project.
Your home should be your sanctuary – uncluttered and organized to fit your needs, lifestyle and preferences. It’s easy for life to get in the way, but by making a commitment to yourself to live in a clutter-free (or at least less-cluttered) environment, you’ll find that you feel less scattered and stressed. And isn’t that what we all want?