Clearing the clutter

Weeks and weeks of putting the mail on your kitchen counter eventually adds up! And that shoe pile by the door — how long has that been building up? To make your life easy, here are a few easy tricks that will help you clean up your clutter in no time and with virtually no hassle.

• Add it to your daily routine: If your home is seemingly always overwhelmed with clutter, get in the habit of clearing it out daily. Take 20 to 30 minutes of your time and work on a different cluttered area every day. Don’t try to tackle the whole house in one day — as if the clutter wasn’t overwhelming enough!

• Make space: Why do we all hate clutter? It limits our space in the world. Clearing your home of piles and junk can give you a feeling of greater emotional and mental space. Go through your biggest piles of clutter and decide what “stuff” to donate. If it’s out of your house, it’s no longer clutter!

• Store it: Create more storage! Everything should have its place. If you have items and papers that don’t necessarily belong anywhere, designate a storage unit for miscellaneous items. If you have DVDs strewn all over the living room, give them a new home together. If you have a handful of items that are just too sentimental to dispose of, find a home for them as well. It’s OK to have a “junk box” as long as it’s really just one junk box and it’s out of plain sight.