Spring is well and truly in the air; and Britons across the UK are sure to be keen to deep clean their homes – and get rid of old junk lying around – to bring in the fresh new season.
But according to two of Britain’s leading decluttering experts, there are common mistakes that can make the process harder than it needs to be.
Lesley Spellman, 56, from Manchester, and Ingrid Jansen, 51, from London, are the duo behind The Declutter Hub, and their new Bloomsbury book, Reset Your Home: Unpack Your Emotions And Your Clutter, Step By Step, has quickly become a bestseller since launching last month.
Lesley also runs The Clutter Fairies, offering hands-on decluttering services across Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside, Cheshire, and North Wales, while Ingrid is behind London’s Organise Your House.
Speaking to FEMAIL, the pair have revealed eight of the biggest mistakes people make while tidying the houses – from leaning on the pressure to have an ‘Insta perfect’ home to knowing when not to bin an old item.
The duo also warned against falling into the trap of letting old junk you’re meant to throw away sit around in your home without an ‘exit plan’.
Here, we look at Lesley and Ingrid’s top tips…
Don’t confuse decluttering with organising
We’ve all been there. Faced with a looming decluttering project, we run to the shops or jump online and start buying storage boxes ready to start filling them with our belongings. But this turns a project meant to reduce the volumes of things into one that organises them into pretty boxes instead.
Decluttering might conjure up images of perfectly organised spaces, like a kitchen with labelled jars and rotating bottle holders. But hang fire! Sourcing storage solutions should come much later in the process, after you’ve decluttered your belongings. Don’t make the mistake of buying storage too early. Declutter first to understand where your storage gaps are.
More often than not you’ll already have the storage you need. If not, use temporary storage solutions like cardboard boxes, shoe boxes, and takeaway containers as you declutter, organise, and categorise. This allows you the time to consider whether open or closed storage works best and will mean that at the right time you’ll find the perfect solution for storing and finding things in your home.
Don’t be taken in by Insta-perfect
Social media can be more of a blessing than a curse when it comes to keeping you on track with your decluttering. Transformations from chaotic to clutter free can happen with the click of a finger but that’s not the way it happens in reality.
We are bombarded with images of Insta-perfect homes, but It’s important to remember that homes come in all different shapes and sizes and, unless a house move is imminent, your home is your home. Therefore, we all need to make the best of our current situation and make realistic decisions based on where we currently live. The decisions you make about the volume of items you can keep will depend on the size of your home. The space we have is finite and will dictate the choices we need to make. Embrace what you have rather than lament what you don’t.
And don’t fall foul of micro-organising. Although decanting our laundry detergent into pretty glass containers can seem like it will change our life, turn your focus into working your way through your piles of laundry first. The glass containers will wait for now.
Don’t run before you can walk
When we think about decluttering, our minds automatically take us to the tough areas in our home – that box of stuff that belongs to your late mum, that dumping ground in your spare bedroom that makes you want to close the door quickly. The trickier areas of our home are tough emotionally and physically so we need to be ready for them. Our decluttering muscle needs to develop one room at a time, so it is sufficiently flexed when we get to the tough stuff. The ultimate aim is that our decluttering muscle is strong enough to facilitate making confident and controlled decisions about what we choose to have in our homes on an ongoing basis.
Therefore, hold off on things like sentimental items and paperwork until later in the project. Tackle sentimental items after all other rooms in your home are complete, and paperwork at the end of your journey when your decluttering muscle is strong. Tackle those rooms of doom once you’ve looked at the everyday areas.
Items that are practical rather than sentimental are much easier to declutter, which is why you should start in rooms that have more practical things than emotional.
Don’t think of decluttering as a one-off project
As stuff comes into your home, stuff will need to leave to make space for it. Transitions in life mean that what we love today may not be what we love tomorrow. Our decluttering will be a continually evolving process that will span a lifetime.
It’s also unlikely that we will master the perfect decluttering journey in one rotation of our home. Expect a second pass through your home, indeed even expect multiple passes through your home. But one thing’s for sure, once you have built up your decluttering muscle and you return to some areas again, you will be stronger and more confident in knowing why something is no longer serving you and can be decluttered. The reality is we will have to re-evaluate the things we keep in our home on a continual basis forever.
By employing this phased approach to your clutter, you will feel in control and determined that the decisions you are making are the right ones.
If in doubt, DON’T throw it out
As you work through the rooms in your home, it’s always helpful to step a little outside your comfort zone. That will open up the possibility of evaluating your items with a fresh perspective. But a successful decluttering project is fundamentally dictated by feeling in control of the decisions you are making.
But if you’ve gone as far as you feel comfortable and are still wrestling with a decision about something, keep it. Yes, we actually said that. If in doubt, don’t throw it out. It’s important that you feel fully in control of each and every choice you make. If you let go of something you weren’t ready for, you will second guess yourself and feel resentful of and unnerved by the process.
You need to allow yourself the time and space to make gradual progress and feel confident your decisions are the right ones for you today. In fact, we urge you to reframe your decluttering so your main focus is on making a decision about what to keep rather than what to let go. Just that simple switch in perspective can be powerful.
Don’t be distracted by other people and their stuff
Don’t get the urge to direct your decluttering attention to other people’s stuff before the time is right. When your side of the wardrobe is perfectly curated and all you see is the chaos at the other side, it can be super frustrating, but it’s important to recognise the decluttering process as your individual journey.
Not everyone in your world will be motivated to declutter to the same degree within the same timescales. (In fact, other people in your household may even doubt your ability to make progress, or may interfere in your decision making.) Our advice is to stick to your lane and ignore the back seat drivers.
What often happens is that other people in your household will slowly but surely start to see the results of your hard work. They will see your stress start to dissipate, the household expenditure decrease and the calm start to ascend. That’s when they get interested in decluttering. So, be patient. If you build it, they will come – or we hope so anyway!
Don’t prioritise selling over decluttering
Remember why you’re invested in decluttering. You want to let go of items that are no longer serving you in your current life. But we often muddle this concept with selling things. We decide that selling is important because we feel guilty that we ‘wasted’ money in the past but this can have a seriously negative impact on our success.
Before deciding to sell you need to do your research and see if it is worth your time and effort. The last thing you want is to create a whole room of stuff you want to sell and never get around to it. We want you to succeed in your declutter and often keeping stuff to one side for selling is the barrier that stops that from happening.
So, be really honest within yourself about the likelihood of getting around to the selling process. Do you already have bags waiting to be sold under the bed? Maybe you need to cut your losses and focus on decluttering rather than recouping money from the things you no longer want.
Don’t drive around with a boot full of clutter
We can’t stress enough how vital it is to have your exit plan for your decluttered items worked out before you start to declutter. After all, if something is still sitting in your house then you haven’t actually let it go.
When you’re getting ready to declutter you need to plan in advance where all the things you no longer need or want are going. The last thing you want is to have bags and bags full of stuff you keep tripping over in your hallway or riding around in the boot of your car forever and a day. Getting your unwanted items out of your home and to their next destination is a vital part of your decluttering.
Our main advice? Keep things simple. If you can donate to a charity shop, find one that isn’t overly choosy about what they will or won’t accept. Make a phone call in advance so there are no surprises when you arrive with your donations. If possible, choose a charity shop that makes things easy for you, that accepts donations all day every day and where parking or travel there is straightforward. Just remember, the main goal is to keep focusing on decluttering progress rather than finding the perfect charity for every item. We want you to succeed and don’t want to see any barriers standing in your way.
Forewarned is forearmed as they say. By starting the decluttering in your home, understanding the top mistakes people make, you can ensure you don’t fall foul of them and slowly but surely make those steps towards a clutter free home. The very best of luck!
Lesley Spellman and Ingrid Jansen’s new Bloomsbury book, Reset Your Home: Unpack Your Emotions And Your Clutter, Step By Step, is out now.
