Prepping your home for the New Year

It’s almost that time of the year when we start preparing to usher in a new year. For some of us, a fresh coat of paint or new furniture usually seems like the best way to go. Gbemisola Oke of SPACE Magazine gives us an interesting chunk on how to properly manage and create more space in our homes, basically the way to go about Prepping your home for the New Year.

Downsize, darling!

The first (and most important) step in keeping your home clutter-free is to remove the excessive possessions that are stealing our lives, time, and energy. Most of the time our homes are filled with items we no longer use, these items might be clothes, gifts, souvenirs (most Nigerian homes), papers etc. To have an organized home it is essential that we get rid of those unnecessary items we have in our spaces. Making the decision to get rid of your old things may actually be the hardest part of de-cluttering. Its Christmas season you can donate to charity. As a rule of thumb anything you didn’t use in 2017 has to go because you pretty much wouldn’t use it in 2018. An easy approach to de-clutter your home is by tackling it room by room as doing it all at once might be overwhelming and confusing.

Start by taking everything out of the space, giving you a clean slate and evaluate every item. To remain organised while de-cluttering, I recommend having 3 boxes or bags labelled To Keep, To Discard, To Give Charity. When deciding what to let go of or store I strongly recommend that you let go of all sentiments and you are completely honest with yourself. Make sure that what you keep is ‘home worthy.’ Is it useful? Do you love it? Does it fit? Do you need so many? Is it time to let go? Ask the questions before putting things away.”

Keep like things together

So the excess lot has been ridden off, what next?  A guiding rule is to keep like things together. Storing like things together will not only help you keep your home organised but it will also make your life easier. Always think about how you want the space to function and what kinds of activities you will be doing there. It is essential to store items that will be frequently used in easily accessible areas such as the front of the shelf or surface area or close to the areas in which they will be used.  While items that are not frequently used can be placed further away or at the back of the shelf.

Prepping your home for the New Year

Constant Cleaning and re-evaluate:

Now that you have gone through the hard work of de-cluttering your home, which is a vital part of Prepping your home for the New Year, it’s important to develop a cleaning habit. This could be cleaning your spaces once or twice a week as opposed to cleaning once every month. Doing this will make you home look cleaner and organised; it will also help you identify and eliminate unwanted items in your space. With continuous use, it is important to also evaluate your storage areas over time, if the areas are getting cluttered again you need to ask yourself the following: is there is too much items in the space? Is accessibility a problem? You answers to the questions will serve as a guide in helping you modify your storage areas.

You need to slow down the collection!  

The last step is to prevent the clutter in your home from returning in the future. To live is to consume. It cannot be avoided – especially in our society and culture. It is important that you think twice about what you bring in to your home.  So just before you make that purchase or collect that souvenir at a party ask yourself the following questions:

Is this item really needed? Do I have a place to store this when I get it home? How much extra work will this possession add to my life? Am I buying it for the right reasons? Asking this questions will definitely help you slow down your accumulation process.