How to Use a Trigger Event to Declutter Your Home

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you’ve been planning on decluttering your home for a while. Maybe it was a slow and steady buildup of frustration because it’s hard to find things. Maybe something is always left in the way. But it can be hard to get started, especially because there’s always something more urgent to do.

Going room to room can be a good strategy, but it’s also easy to just shift things from room to room. Moving things to the garage makes it easy to put them back. So give yourself a solid reason to declutter. This reason needs to have:

a direct connection to decluttering your home,
a deadline, and
a benefit you can look forward to or enjoy that’s separate from the decluttering.
What trigger event do you want?
What’s a definite event that you want to happen that requires you to dig through all of your belongings? It can be tricky to think of. It’s not a reward for decluttering but something that can only happen afterward. Three great options are:

A party at your house.
If you know that you’d never want to invite people over until you get your house in order, invite people over. Plan a dinner party or a big get-together a month or so away and make sure people RSVP. Once you have that commitment, decluttering becomes a priority you can’t put off.

Paint your home’s interior or get new flooring.
But sometimes it’s easy to just clean, especially if you’re close friends over, or push everything into the spare room and close the door.

So choose a home improvement project that will add value to your home. Once you book the painters or order your new flooring, the clock has started. You have next to no choice but to sort everything you’ve been meaning to go through. And once you’re done, you don’t just have a decluttered home. You have freshly painted walls or beautiful new flooring to make it even better.

Go to The Box for more home decluttering and storage tips.