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Lockdown decluttering hints and tips….

Nicky Davie – also known as “Tidy Girl” shares her decluttering hints and tips with The Group Hug community.

This is an incredibly unusual time for all of us. We’ve heard the word unprecedented used so many times in the passing weeks and months.

I’ve been thinking about how I share with you how I’ve been coping currently, offering advice, hints and tips to help you.

Unprecedented means ‘extraordinary, exceptional, unique’. Until March 23rd, our lives were busy. A roller coaster of rushing around to meetings, family life, social gathering, families – a relentless daily cycle, with no way out.

That all changed when we were all put on lockdown. Confined to our own homes, going out for an hour’s exercise, essential food or medical trips. For most of us, the first week felt a little like a strange holiday at home, with all the family around. We navigated our way through the week and celebrated as we got to the weekend – we’d managed a WEEK of not going out.

As lockdown2 eases and life starts to get back to some semblance of normality we are left with the debris of what we have been through – and you may find that your home is a complete mess! Where do you start?

Many weeks down the line and it’s starting to hurt, we are missing our freedom, our family, friends (and even our annoying work colleagues!). Our lives have moved online, we are still in contact, but we are physically distanced from each other.

You may have started to notice more clutter at home.

The clutter, the mess. The things you kept promising you’d deal with when you had ‘more time’. The ironic thing is that we have time, and its now even more daunting a task and many people I have spoken too have found it more stressful to deal with it now than when they were busy. We have time to think, to procrastinate and talk ourselves into thinking that we NEED to keep it all.

Make decluttering a new project

Stuck in this web of isolation in our own four walls can be challenging, but I’m here to share with you that it CAN be uplifting. By starting a decluttering project is fantastic way of putting your time in lockdown to good use, making your home a better environment to live and work in. It will also give your mental health a good boost in the process.

tidy girl nicky davie thrives on decluttering

Using this time in lockdown is perfect time to look at your living spaces and organise them. It’s a great time to put into place organisational systems. Simply put, once you’ve completed it will give you more space, time, create a relaxing environment and most importantly benefit your mental wellbeing.

Here’s my top hints and tips.

Walk your home and make a list

Take some time to walk around your home with a pen and paper and review each space, it might be a great time to do it with family or children, fresh eyes are a real help.  In each room, take a note of the areas that are cluttered, don’t forget those areas that are hidden, under the stairs, in cupboards, under beds etc.

Plan

Once you have walked your home and made your notes, its time to prioritise.  List them in order of importance. You’ll have a starting point.

Prepare

You’ll need bags / boxes (it’s worth noting that at this time, it may be difficult to recycle / sell items, so you may need to allocate a storage space for the items that you want to pass on) Don’t forget pen and paper for labelling.

I decluttered my life as I moved house after my divorce. At the time I found it emotionally difficult, but now, a couple of years on, I couldn’t even tell you what I got rid of. You have to make space in your life to bring in new things and make new memories.

Catherine – Northants

Time

Decide when you will do your decluttering and organising. Everyone is different, do it at a time that works for you. Decluttering and organising have a lovely calmness to it and can help when you are feeling unsettled.

Break it down

Work in 30 minutes cycles, you can then review how you are feeling after this.

It gets worse before it gets better

During decluttering and organising, everything always looks messy and chaotic before being organised. Try not to just keep moving things around your home. Put it into place a system that will help and provide you a long-term solution. There are different ways to tackle decluttering, but I empty a cupboard completely so you can clearly see what is being stored and then review each item.  You can then decide whether the storage space is currently being used effectively.

Tidy house, tidy mind….

Review

You’ll find that if you have effective household systems in place for daily tasks such as paperwork, laundry and meal planning, it can really help you to feel in control of your home management. Instead of ‘firefighting your life’ and only getting to those things that NEED to be completed.

REMEMBER!

Reuse and recycle

The places that we can recycle are currently closed, so you’ll need to store unwanted sorted items in a space. You’ll be so pleased that you used this time to organise your home.

nicky davie is the decluttering queen

Contact Nicky via The Hug Directory

17/06/20 – Nicky is currently unable to visit her clients at home and is instead offering virtual guidance sessions by Zoom or FaceTime calls. You can follow Nicky on Facebook (@TidyGirlDecluttering).

Things will change as lockdown gradually eases so do get in touch to find out more.

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