Step Into A Blissful Home With These Amazing Decluttering Tips
In today’s fast-paced world where our lifestyles have sped up and we struggle to maintain a healthy balance between work and home, it is necessary to keep things simple and give your mind a sense of sanity and clarity. The importance of organising and decluttering cannot be overstated. The beautiful fusion of minimalism and functionality in a highly organised and decluttered home is the ultimate answer to today’s stressful times. It does not matter whether you live in an HDB apartment, condo, or a landed property, by creating a decluttered space, you too can have a tranquil and relaxing abode.
Reasons why decluttering is essential to create a tranquil, peaceful ambience
Often we do not realise that a cluttered space can have such a negative impact on our outlook of life. Clutter is disruptive, creates confusion, is stressful, and reduces our productivity, just to name a few of the adverse effects. The following reasons describe why decluttering is absolutely essential to create a calm, relaxing, and blissful environment in your homes.
Neat and Organised Space
Since decluttering involves throwing away all the unnecessary items from your space and organising all the remaining elements in beautiful balance and harmony, the resulting space is neat, spick and span, and organised. And who doesn’t like organised spaces? They are simple, elegant, relaxing, and balanced.
Creates Clear Vision and Focus
A cluttered space creates distractions and hinders one’s ability to focus on the essentials. When you declutter and organise a space, it helps eliminate all kinds of distractions and not only clears the physical space but your mental space as well. You are better able to have a clear vision and focus on the details that actually matter instead of wasting your time and energy on irrelevant tasks.
Great Aesthetic Appeal
A decluttered space creates a highly beautiful and elegant aesthetic appeal. In today’s fast-paced times, more and more people are adopting the minimalist interior design style as it allows them to create an aesthetically pleasing home that is simple and elegant. Decluttering is the number one prerequisite of minimalism. When you choose only the most important functional elements in your home, it helps create a beautiful and elegant atmosphere where every element shines in its glory without being overshadowed by too much going on in the space.
Increased Functionality
When you have an organised and decluttered home, it offers greater functionality. This notion may seem a bit difficult to grasp since we are using limited elements, so functionality may be restricted. But that is not the class. Decluttering means that you remove all the necessary elements, appliances, and other supplies from the interior of your home. This means that whatever elements are left are actually the ones that are useful. When everything is organised, you can immediately get what you want and get the work done without wasting any time in trying to find the right elements. Therefore, by eliminating unnecessary items, you create a more functional space.
Improved Productivity
A cluttered and messy space can have quite an adverse effect on your productivity, whether this productivity refers to your professional work or the normal household chores that you do everyday. A messy environment can create confusion and distractions that can hinder your ability to get your work done efficiently. On the contrary, when the area is decluttered and everything is organised, you can focus on the job at hand and give it your best shot without any disruptions. This increases your productivity and you actually enjoy whatever you are doing.
Reduced Stress
As discussed earlier, a cluttered space can become too overwhelming for your mind especially when there is enough chaos in the world around you. In such times, you need your home to be a humble abode that exudes simplicity, beauty, and bliss. A decluttered home can offer you all that and more. In such an organised space, there is reduced stress which, in turn, can have a positive impact on your mood. With reduced stress, you feel refreshed and can take on whatever comes towards you with a strong and confident response.
Tried and Tested Approach to Declutter your Home
When you have decided to declutter your home, it can become a bit overwhelming at the start. You may feel the urge to start throwing away objects from all rooms of the house and find yourself in a difficult situation where you are neither here nor there. The best approach to declutter your home is to divide the task in stages and prioritise what needs to be kept and what should be gotten rid of. The following suggestions can help you streamline your decluttering project so that you are able to finish the task in an efficient manner.
Define Achievable Goals
The first and foremost step towards decluttering is to clearly define your goals and the intention behind decluttering. Are you doing it because of lesser space or do you want to increase the functionality or aesthetics of the space? Once your goals are defined, you will be in a better position to stay motivated and achieve the goals. Moreover, make sure that the goals and timeline you define are achievable so you do not get demotivated if they are not met.
Involve All Family Members
A home is a place where all family members live together and contribute towards its aesthetics and overall ambience. It is only logical that all family members should then be involved in the decluttering project. Involve everyone, take their suggestions, delegate responsibilities, and get the work done in much less of a time. Furthermore, this project could turn into a fun family activity that everyone can enjoy in each others’ company; something that is quite rare to find in today’s busy schedules.
Divide and Conquer
Instead of starting off on all rooms of the house at one time and becoming overwhelmed, the most successful strategy is to start from one room of the house and divide it into further sections. This strategy can help you stay on track and you will notice that the room continues to become organised and decluttered one step at a time.
Categorise The Elements
The next step is to create piles of all your stuff and divide them into further groups, for example, the ones you require on a daily basis, the ones to give away, and the ones that can be stored away in storage. Put all the objects into these piles and deal with them accordingly.
Digitise Your Paperwork
Some of the most clutter and mess in homes is that of all the paperwork that has accumulated over the years. Files, bills, notes, and other paperwork can not only take up a lot of space but create a visual mess. When you plan to declutter your home, it is high time to digitise all that paperwork. Sort out all the files, create their digital copies where possible, and invest in digital filing systems that allow you to easily access them whenever required.
Nurture Good Organising Habits
While decluttering your home, it is essential that you do not lose focus. Often at times, you can feel that you start to put things back in their place after you have decided that they need to go. Keep focusing on your goals and objectives and try to develop and nurture good organising habits so that they help you in the future as well. Encourage your family members to do so also and incorporate the habit of organisation in all daily tasks.
Invest In Good Storage Solutions
One of the most important and vital keys to success of a decluttering project is to have effective storage solutions. Even though you might think that you will give away most of the stuff, you will be surprised to see the number of things which you may have categorised as necessary. If you display all these things in clear sight, it would create a messy environment and clutter. For this reason, you should have plenty of storage so that all the extra items that you do not require on a daily basis can be stowed away and only the few essentials can take their space in clear sight. These days, you can find a lot of intelligent storage solutions that take up less space and allow you to store much of your stuff in them.
Create A Decluttering Timeline
Lastly, it is important that you create a realistic timeline for your decluttering project. In the absence of a deadline, the decluttering process will continue to linger on during which you may lose your focus and motivation. When you have a clearly chalked-out plan in front of you, you will be able to work more efficiently and your home could become the epitome of simplicity and tranquillity.
Trending Ideas to Declutter and Organise Your Home
Now that we have discussed a few effective tips to declutter your home, let us go through some trending ideas and styles that can help you organise your space, remove all the clutter, and create a relaxing, minimalist home.
Get Furniture With Built-In Storage
The one thing that can go a long way in helping you declutter your home is to have enough storage space where you can put all the non-essential elements, leaving your home neat, clean, and organised. If you do not have a separate store room for this purpose, it should not stop you from creating storage space in the area that you have. And the best way to achieve this is to get furniture that has built-in storage in it. Furniture pieces and other structures that double as storage will take just the same amount of space and give double the functionality. Sofas with built-in storage, ottomans and centre tables that have storage space in between them, and similar structures can help store a lot of your stuff.
Consider the following interior design portfolio where we can see a great idea of incorporating storage space into a furniture item. As can be seen in the following picture, there is a platform that can be utilised for sitting purposes. The platform, however, is hollow, and offers quite a lot of storage space underneath the cushions.
Similarly, the following image of an interior design portfolio also gives inspiration on how you can get extra storage space in a small room. Instead of a traditional bed, a platform has been created upon which the mattress has been placed directly. This platform has built-in storage drawers underneath which can store away many objects and help you in decluttering your space.
Stow Away Less Frequently Used Elements
Another great idea to successfully declutter your home is to stow away the elements which you do not use frequently. Think of all the elements, appliances, and equipment that you use only once a day or even less than that. Instead of keeping that object in clear view, keep it inside a shelf, drawer, or cabinet so the available visual space should appear neat and organised.
As an example, consider the following picture of a kitchen where we can see that the kitchen counters are not overflowing with appliances and other kitchenware. Instead, only a couple of elements can be seen and the rest have been stored away in the cabinets. When you require any appliance, you can simply take it out of the cabinet, use it, and place it back inside. This way, the same remains decluttered while the objects are still in your reach whenever you need them.
A similar example can be seen in the following image. It does not matter whether you have a small kitchen or large, keeping it decluttered is crucial to ensure a beautiful and elegant ambience. In this image, we can see a big kitchen with enough storage in the form of cabinets and kitchen island. This allows the residents to keep all their kitchenware tucked away in these shelves to keep the kitsch counters spick and span. This helps create a highly elegant and trendy ambience in the space.
Organise Your Wardrobes and Shelves
Another important approach to decluttering involves organising your wardrobes and other storage shelves. Often, we make the apparent visual space neat and organised while our wardrobes and shelves tell a completely different story of mess and clutter. It is vital that when you are decluttering the apparent visual space of your house, you organise and declutter your wardrobes and shelves also which are normally hidden from people’s view. This is because if you create a habit of organising each and every element of your home, whether in clear view or not, the whole process of decluttering will become your second nature and you would never create a mess.
The following image of our design portfolio shows what a well-organised wardrobe should look like. Create separate compartments for one type of apparel. While hanging your clothes, utilise the maximum vertical space and install two hanging rods if possible. Create separate areas for your folded clothes, undergarments, shoes, bags, and other accessories. Once everything is organised in the proper manner, you will feel as if a burden has been lifted off your shoulders and you would definitely love this new decluttered look.
Just like your wardrobe, your book shelves and other storage areas need to be organised properly. The following image shows a trendy way to create a set of shelves that can be used for storing and displaying books and other objects. Some of the shelves are open while others are closed. Utilise the open shelves to display books and decor elements to add to the aesthetics of the space while the other objects can be stored in the covered shelves. This trendy design will add a great aesthetic touch to your decluttered space.
Keep Minimal Furniture
It goes without saying that to create a decluttered space, you need to have minimal elements and this includes the furniture as well. Keep minimal furniture that serves the required purpose. Having too many furniture pieces can create a visual mess that cannot be offset even if you remove all other unnecessary items from view.
The following image shows a living room that has minimal furniture in it. There is just one three-seater sofa and TV console with no unnecessary side or centre tables. The resultant space is airy and spacious with no clutter or mess. This creates a calm and relaxing ambience in the space.
Similarly, the following image shows another living room where there is minimal furniture to keep the area decluttered and neat. There is only one adjoining sofa that allows a lot of seating while still taking up less space. A floating TV console does the job while taking up very less space while the sleek side tables also help in creating an organised and decluttered space.
Keep Decor To A Minimum
Another effective tip that can help you reduce the visual mess and clutter in your home is to keep the decor to a minimum. Even if you do not have a lot of objects lying around, if there is too much decoration or ornamentation in the space, it will give the illusion of a messy environment. By keeping decor items to a minimum and sticking to a monochromatic theme, you will not only reduce the visual chaos in the space but also create a highly trendy and stylish interior.
This idea can be seen in action in the following image of an interior design project where there is little to none decoration. Moreover the monochromatic interior design theme adds a touch of elegance in this minimalist space.
Similarly, the following image of a bedroom shows a similar approach where there are no wall hanging or decorative pieces displayed in the room. All the furniture and other structures are simple and elegant and the monochromatic theme further enhances the simple and decluttered look of the room.
All these tips and ideas can help you create a calm and tranquil environment in your home through the power of decluttering and minimalism. At THIS MOODBOARD, our designers understand the importance of modern architecture and interior design and help you in creating just the right ambience in your home. For interior design inspiration to create an elegant and beautiful home in Singapore, get in touch with us today.
