The Benefits of Decluttering

Welcome to Melbourne Spring, which coincides with Spring Cleaning and at the same time, while we are still in Lockdowns in Melbourne, there has never been a better time for Decluttering, which goes hand in hand with Spring Cleaning.

Staying at home is very difficult for a lot of people, especially phsycologically and especially for extroverts, who are used to running around and leading busy lives.  Staying busy during lockdowns with productive and useful activities have proven to give people purpose, a sense of accomplishment and a sense of moving forward, not to mention the benefit of living in a clean and organised space.

In addition, here are the extra benefits of Decluttering Your Home:

• improved energy and feng-shui around your home
• an increased enjoyment of your living and working spaces
• a feeling of extra space in your home
• less objects collecting dust, hence making it easier to breathe
• creation of extra spaces, such as a space for home office, home learning environment or a space for your exercise
• improved mood, as a result of staying busy and kicking goals
• overall improved level of satisfaction of improving your home environment, among many others.

Here are our top 5 tips for Decluttering Your Home during Lockdowns:

Step 1 - Declutter Your Office or Work Space

With the unprecedented move for work at home, a majority of our Melbourne workforce had to make changes and start working from home.  While some people already had a home office, an overwhelming majority had to make some changes in their home to create this "office" or "work space" in order to create some privacy and get in the zone for their productive working day.

A large part of creating a productive working environment is to clear space, not only for your work area but also for files and paperwork if you require any.  Ideally is also to store your folders somewhere on a shelf, whether it's an open shelving or closed one and in many cases you need to get rid of your previous older folders / paperwork in order to create space for a new ones.

One of our customers, who is a Builder, has shared his tips on Office Decluttering:

"I had many folders in my office, dating back to 2011, when I had started my business.  You are only required to keep some records up to 7 years, therefore I had tens of folders that I could empty and re-purpose and create a much needed space in my cabinets. In addition to that, I have 3 kids who have been "learning from home" for the last few months and we had an insane amount of paperwork from their studies.  I got my kids to go through their papers and also recycle all the used up materials, as they were overflowing and making my office completely unfit for the purpose.  As a result of this massive clean out of my office, my older son has happily taken up one of the desks for his schooling as the energy and space has completely transformed from a chaotic environment, overflowing with papers and folders to a completely organised, clean and inviting space, condusive to productive work."

One of the challenges of cleaning out large amounts of paperwork is that your yellow bin will start overflowing.  In this case, provided you are decluttering a few areas in your home, you might require a mini-skip to dispose of all the unwanted items.

Step 2 - Declutter Your Kids Rooms

There are two major areas when it comes to kids rooms or spaces, which need decluttering, namely:

• toys, games (for younger kids) and
• clothes - for all age kids

It is best to go through these spaces with your kids, if they are old enough.  This achieves a few objectives:

• you can check with your kids which games / toys they are still playing with and which ones they are prepared to say goodbye to
• you are teaching your kids the art of decluttering and the importance of reviewing their toys / games and evaluating their usefullness
• you are teaching your kids how to organise their space and giving them a feeling of pride and achievement of taking control over what stays and what goes
• you will ensure that there are no misunderstanding in case their "favourite" toy gets accidentally chucked out or donated somewhere (oops)
• by sorting through their clothes, you can ask them to try a few things on, to determine if the size still fits or whether its time to pass the clothes on to either their younger siblings, friends or donation centres.
• by clearing small or no longer useful clothes from their wardrobes, you are not only creating space for the clothes that they do wear, but make it easier to manage their wardrobe and easier to find stuff, which they actually wear
• by placing items into the donation or friends bags, you are teaching your kids the notion of clothes recycling and the importance of keeping their clothes and shoes in good condition, so that they can be passed on to the younger kids.
• overall experience can be a lot of fun and an opportunity to bond with your child, in addition when grand parents will come over, be prepared for your kids to show off their newly organised and cleaned toys cabinets and wardrobes (speaking from personal experience).

Of cause, if you've already started decluttering from your home office and now kids areas, you are more than likely have overfilled your council bins and by now will be considering which size skip you might need to order.

STEP 3 - Declutter Your Kitchen and Pantry

That's another one of our favourites, where you can also involve your kids, just for the fun of it.

One of the pitfalls of modern kitchens is that now we sometimes have too many drawers and we forget where everything is and end up buying or accumulating stuff, which we no longer need or can't decide whether we need it or not.  The result is a completely disorganised pantry, butlers pantry (if you have one) and of cause your miltiple kitchen drawers.

There are a few areas to look into when organising your kitchen cupboards:

• check for dry foods expiration dates and chuck out anything out of date, such as various herbs & spices, baking ingredients, pasta and anything else that might have expired
• check for any old cereals or other boxes with food, which stood open for too long and its time to say "goodbye"
• organise your kitchen drawers, if its all white and you can't remember where you keep your pots, pans, lids and so on - we recommend to do temporary labels, even with sticky notes for various drawers, untill you can remember their permanent home.
• chuck out any old containers, which you no longer use, old lunch boxes, odd pieces with no lids or other stuff, which is no longer in use
• review your kitchen tools and utensils as well, particularly some old rice cooker, which you no longer use or chopper, which no longer works and so forth, chuck it out basically.

STEP 4- Declutter Your Laundry and Storage Cabinets

While it might sound boring, but the rewards are countless. Usually, laundry and various "storage" cabinets around the house are the smallest area and its too easy to get it wrong and completely cluttered with useless stuff, which should no longer be there.  Clearing your Laundry room drawers or cabinets will enable you to throw away the expired or finished cleaning supplies, will give you an opportunity to organise your current supplies and will also enable you to find your cleaning and laundry chemicals and tools much faster when you need them.

In addition, by reorganising these spaces, you will once again shift the energy in your home, remove stale energy, create much needed space for other useful storage, such as toilet paper rolls, which we all now love to stock up on :-)

STEP 5- Declutter Your Garage

This has got to be the most favourite place for our Melbourne customers to declutter.  Probably every 5th skip bin that we rent out is for the garage clean out, that's how current and important that area is.

Garage is usually a place where we throw the stuff that we either don't know what to do with right now or can't deal with right now, basically a "set and forget" scenario.  However there comes a time when this overstuffed garage will start grating on your nerves.  We human beings actually love living in organised and clean spaces even though we are not always prepare to do what it takes.

However, once your garage has reached a point of "no return" - we recommend to roll up your sleeves and just Go for it!  We seriously recommend to get a skip bin by that stage, as usually items collected in a garage are bulky and will be very hard to dispose of in the traditional council bins, particularly if you've already gone through major areas in your home and now have a serious amount of stuff to dispose of.

The immense benefits of clearing your garage from junk is to make it usable again!  All this spare space, once you've reclaimed the space for yourself, you can use for many various things, such as:

• put a table tennis there and keep yourself and your kids active during lockdown
• even when the lockdown is over - table tennis is a great entertainment for visitors, kids and adults alike
• organise a home gym in your garage, another favourite of our customers, particularly when all the gyms are closed
• park your nice car in your garage - an oldie but a goodie!  Parking your vehicle inside actually adds years to your car's apperance, protects paint and keeps your car clean
• create a man's cave in your garage, equip it with a couch, mini bar, TV set and entertain your mates during footie season

All in all, the benefits of decluttering your home are countless and should you brave the task - we will be here to support you with any waste disposal of your unwated items.  To get an instant quote for a skip bin, you can jump online or give our friendly team a call on 1300 605 624 and we'd be able to advise on correct skip bin size for your Decluttering Project.