I usually spend some time everyday cleaning the house. When you have kids, your house doesn’t stay clean any more unless you clean it at least once a day, and pick up things a few times a day. So cleaning is on my daily to-do list, but decluttering has not been on my list for years until now. I decided that I need to spend a little bit time, maybe 15 to 30 minutes, everyday to declutter my house.

Declutter a kitchen drawer

So I started with a kitchen drawer which held miscellaneous small stuff. That drawer had been a mess, I did not know what else I had in there besides rubber bands and bandages. I used a few containers for different things: one for dry sponges, one for glues, one for small screw drivers, one for rubber bands, one for small miscellaneous hardwares. I was very impressed myself after the drawer was organized. I showed it to my husband, and he was very impressed as well, he said, “Wow, this is even more impressive than a clean house.”

It’s incredible. That drawer had not been useful to us because it was such a mess, and now after I spent a little bit time organizing it, it became much more useful to us.

To spend 15 to 30 minutes decluttering a day is a very doable goal, I wonder why I never thought of doing this before? It has something to do with one’s vocabulary, when the word ‘declutter’ or ‘unclutter’ was not in my daily vocabulary, it was not in my thinking; when I used a broader term, ‘clean’, it did not necessarily include ‘organizing’ and ‘decluttering’. It’s quite interesting how one’s words influence one’s actions.

Next Steps

Maybe tomorrow I would spend some time declutter my desk.

Maybe the day after tomorrow I would declutter my book shelves.

It feels wonderful to have a clutter-free space.