Decluttering doesn’t come naturally to most of us. Many times it’s overwhelming and involves a lot of emotions. This makes it easy to make decluttering mistakes that dampen our efforts. So just as it’s important to learn how to declutter your home it’s just as important to learn what not to do when decluttering.
Walking through some of the biggest decluttering mistakes, those that undermine your decluttering efforts will help to set you up for complete decluttering success by making sure you know what not to do when decluttering!
Decluttering Mistakes – 6 Things Not To Do When Decluttering
Decluttering Mistakes – 6 Things Not To Do When DeclutteringBelieve me, I’ve made all of these decluttering mistakes and then some! The more I learned what not to do when decluttering, the less overwhelming decluttering became.
So let’s start looking at the top ten decluttering mistakes and the solutions to overcome them.
1. Being Unclear on Why Your Decluttering in the First Place.
Most people just jump in and start decluttering whenever the mood strikes. When their mood changes the decluttering efforts stop. The reason for this is they do not have a basic understanding of the reason they’re decluttering in the first place.
However, being clear on your purpose and knowing exactly why you are decluttering or what you hope to achieve from decluttering your home, is a very important step to decluttering success.
If you have tried to clear the clutter in the past and got stuck, chances are you never stopped to think about why you should declutter in the first place?
Of course, you want a clutter-free home — but what would that specifically look like for you? What are you trying to achieve with your decluttering?
This is going to look different for everyone; common reasons for why you might want to declutter your home include:
- Wanting to spend less time cleaning
- Having more time to enjoy your family
- Wanting to sit and relax without having a to-do list staring back at you
- Actually having time to read
- Being less stressed out – especially when you walk into your home!
- Wanting to simplify your home and life
- Living with intention and purpose for how you spend your time
You see when you lack a vision for your home and are unclear why you’re doing the hard work of decluttering, motivation is low. When motivation is low progress is slow and minimal. You’re then generally unhappy with what little progress you do manage to make.
This is why it’s critical that you begin your decluttering efforts by identifying your WHY! Without being clear on the reason you’re going through the hard work of decluttering your home, you won’t stick with it.
Your why is what provides focus, clarity, and purpose for diving in removing the clutter. Not only will understanding your purpose for decluttering help you move forward, but it will also help you from going backward. Meaning, you won’t undo all your decluttering efforts by bringing back in new clutter.
After all, eliminating the clutter is one thing, keeping it from coming back is a whole nother thing. When the temptation rises to give into unnecessary purchases your why will keep you in check.
2. Using Bandaids on Your Clutter
2. Using Bandaids on Your ClutterA big decluttering mistake I often see when it comes to decluttering is using various bandages that can disguise themselves as efforts to declutter. When you do this, you’re not actually decluttering, instead you’re placing a bandaid on your clutter.
Here are some common ways we use bandaids on our clutter:
We Organize Instead of Declutter
I love the look of a beautifully organized space. I mean, who doesn’t?
However, organizing your excess stuff is a band-Aid, not a long-term solution. It’s a short-term fix.
In fact, I bet I’ve spent more hours organizing my home than my home has spent actually “organized.” This is because what can take hours or even days to achieve, often takes just seconds to unravel. Especially if you’ve got kids in your home.
Getting organized is one thing, but staying organized is an entirely different animal. This is exactly why organizing doesn’t actually leave you organized.
You have to actually declutter the excess and get it out of your home!
Moving Piles From One Spot to Another
I think we’ve all done this from time to time. We are cleaning up one area of our home and come across a pile of stuff. This may be papers, clothing, or any other item. Instead of going through and decluttering the pile we simply move it or parts of it to a new location.
This is definitely something to avoid when decluttering!
Redecorating
This was a huge one for me. I really enjoy home decor and fixing up my house. When things began to feel out of control I would just redecorate.
I’d spend hours painting. I’d go out and buy new curtains, pillows, and other decor items to make things look nice. Of course, in no time things were a mess again.
The reason is simple, not only did I not eliminate the clutter, I actually was adding to it with all the new decor items.
Decorating your home should only come after you’ve finished decluttering. This also helps you know exactly what decor items you may need
3. Setting Unreasonable Expectations
3. Setting Unreasonable ExpectationsOne of my pet peeves is all these posts all over Pinterest that promise you ways to “Easily” Declutter your home over the weekend. Unless you have minimal clutter, even if it were possible to declutter your home over the weekend, I can pretty much guarantee it won’t be easy!
The reality is decluttering takes time. Your home didn’t become cluttered overnight, and it’s unreasonable to expect to declutter it overnight either.
Setting an impossible standard for accomplishing decluttering tasks makes completing the task impossible. About the only thing you will actually accomplish is feelings of frustration because you’re not seeing the results you expect.
On the other hand, when you’re patient with yourself and the process you can focus on the benefits of decluttering that you’re experiencing right now!
Keeping your expectations reasonable will help you accurately see all that you are accomplishing. Your goal is to eliminate the excess and overwhelm, not to change your life overnight.
Some of the factors that will influence how quickly you can declutter include:
- the size of your home
- how many people live in your home
- your hobbies and habits
- previous decluttering experience
When decluttering, avoid setting unreasonable expectations. Focus on what you’re doing one step at a time. I promise all the actions you take to declutter your home will add up big time.
4. Starting the Declutter Process Without A Plan
4. Starting the Declutter Process Without A Plan Can you declutter your home without a plan? Yes. However, when we do, we often fail to treat decluttering as if it’s important.
When we have an important appointment, we write it on our calendar so we don’t forget it! Yet we’ll attempt decluttering tasks whenever the mood strikes us.
One of the dangers of this decluttering mistake is that decluttering without a plan in place tends to make our home a bigger mess. When you just start decluttering without knowing where and what to declutter, it’s far too easy to simply shift the clutter from one place to another rather than actually making decisions and removing it.
However, with a plan of attack, decluttering becomes much easier. A plan of action will help prevent feeling overwhelmed and will also help to keep you motivated throughout the decluttering process.
You don’t have to write down every detail, but you should have a basic idea of when you will declutter and what you will declutter.
For example, you can decide you’ll spend 15 minutes decluttering each weeknight and an hour on Saturdays. Your plan may have you starting with clearing all flat surfaces in your home, or maybe you’ll focus on a specific room.
All this is to say, that what is in your decluttering, plan is not nearly as important as making a plan that will work for you!
5. Not Changing Your Buying Habits
5. Not Changing Your Buying HabitsWe do live in a consumerism-driven society. Yet, at the same time, having stuff is just part of life, it’s always going to come in and out of your life. The nice thing is that you control what comes in and what goes out.
However, while decluttering can change your home temporarily by removing the obvious clutter, it cannot change your lifestyle or your mindset. What you buy and how often you shop for those things is a matter of your personal habits.
If you want a home that is truly clutter-free, you must stop bringing in more stuff than you take out!
In other words, if you take in stuff and don’t take out at least as much stuff, clutter will creep back in before you know it’s happening.
When this happens month after month, year after year, you can easily see why clutter is the problem it is. And the truth is most of us grossly underestimate what we take in.
The only way to change this decluttering mistake is to start creating new habits. Being intentional with your shopping habits is the key to maintaining a clutter-free home!
6. Beating Yourself Up For Past Decluttering Mistakes
6. Beating Yourself Up For Past Decluttering MistakesIt is true that we are our own worst critics. We like to beat ourselves up for our past actions in either allowing the clutter to get out of hand or for our difficulty in getting rid of the clutter.
The end result is we lose focus on why we started simplifying in the first place. Soon we begin to feel defeated and give up altogether.
This is a giant decluttering mistake! I can promise you from personal experience that just because you’re not ready to let go of something today, you very well may be ready tomorrow.
Simplifying your life and your home takes time. It is not always an easy process so you need to be kind to yourself.
The key is to just keep going, and be patient. Before long you will notice the difference the disappearing clutter makes in your life and you can be proud of yourself for all that you accomplished!
Now that you’re clear on what not to do when decluttering and how to overcome the most common decluttering mistakes, it’s time to get to work. All of these mistakes are fixable. So stop beating yourselves up for previous mistakes. Watch your shopping habits, and put a decluttering plan into place.
As you work on your decluttering plan focus on the purpose behind why you want to declutter. Get the clutter out and avoid using those bandaids.
When you do this, you will be well on your way towards creating a home you truly love!
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