Soft Decluttering: The No-Fuss Way To Organize Your Home For Good

Home clutter is a common problem, especially when you have so many other daily tasks that take your attention away from finally tackling your office, junk drawer, or any other space that is often neglected. However, the longer you let clutter in your home go unaddressed, the more it can pile up. What's more, clutter is also associated with stress and anxiety, which can leave you feeling overwhelmed when you try to declutter. If you're already struggling with these emotions, the decluttering method that calls for chaos may not be your best approach. Instead, you might consider soft decluttering, which involves tackling clutter in small, manageable steps to prevent further overwhelm.

If you enjoy decluttering your home, you might be able to tackle such tasks in a day. However, if the thought of decluttering makes you feel stressed or even guilty, soft decluttering can increase your confidence as you go, so you won't be tempted to quit the process entirely. The intent is to complete decluttering a little bit at a time. It's believed that sticking with these small yet manageable goals and celebrating your accomplishments can help you stay motivated to continue to declutter for good. After all, keeping your home tidy is arguably an ongoing mission.

To get started with soft decluttering, you'll first want to consider how to divide your tasks. One way is to start with one small task at a time. Depending on your home's decluttering needs, this can involve a junk drawer or closet or perhaps an entire room. If you tend to get overwhelmed with personal or sentimental items, you may need to consider working around these by targeting trash or donatable items first. The key is to try to do one task every single day — this will help keep the momentum going so you can gradually make your way through your decluttering to-do list without giving up.

Another one of the best strategies for decluttering your home that fits into the soft declutter philosophy is to give yourself a daily time limit. For example, you can start with decluttering for 15 minutes at a time. Use a stopwatch or smartphone timer, and permit yourself to stop the process when the clock hits zero. This is a realistic amount of time to get a lot of decluttering done without stressing over not having enough time to dedicate an entire day to get your home free of clutter. The key is to prevent distractions and to maintain your focus for the set amount of time you've dedicated to soft decluttering. As you progress with the process, you can either elongate your soft decluttering sessions or incorporate more chunks of time spread throughout the day so you can feel confident in keeping your home free of clutter once and for all.