Eric Walker

Fall is definitely that time of year when things need to be cleaned up. You need to head out to the garage and start putting summer stuff away and bring out the winter stuff (wait not yet.. please not winter yet..). Honestly, though this is the perfect time of year to start decluttering. My wife and I did this last year and pretty much downsized our bedroom to 1 dresser (total) and a closet that is only 8x4. Needless to say, we got rid of a lot of stuff and it was the best thing to do.

Our Approach

We honestly didn’t have a specific approach in mind as well have just cleaned rooms from time to time over the 8 years we have lived here and as kids grew up and changed rooms we would then clean that room. More specifically, we would just move the junk to another room. So we finally realized that with 3 kids and all the stuff they have we obviously needed to make some changes and we felt that our room was the best one as it was a space we could control. So instead of doing lots of spaces or things at once we just focused all our efforts on that one room. It did help that once we got started we had the goal in mind of getting rid of one dresser in order to feel like we had more space in our bedroom and it didn’t feel like everything was stacked on top of each other.

A year later and we have still been working on the other rooms of our house but it is something that takes time. Decluttering your house is not an easy feat unless you are just moving from college and haven’t acquired anything. We got derailed this past year with the kitchen remodel but in a way that helped us declutter all of those rooms affected. The one thing if you move from room to room like my wife and I are doing you need to make sure you don’t just go dump things back in a room you have already cleared out. However, that is one of the hardest things so when you get down to only a couple rooms left (like we are now) it gets harder and harder to get it to what you want. However, I am looking forward to the challenge this fall again as the seasons are changing.

If this is something that interest you and you have been wanting to get rid of a lot of stuff I would suggest that you check out what Anthony Ongaro is doing over at Break The Twitch. In fact, the video below is a good way to get started with the 6 most Popular Methods.

Another good resource and guide is “The Art of Tidying Up: A Complete Guide to a Decluttered Life” by Rebecca Moses

Do you use Fall or a change in seasons as a good time to clean up or clean out around the house? If so what is your best method of doing so or how do you approach it?